When the Past Comes Back to Behead You
by aemelia113
Summary: Henry is worried when a newspaper uses his picture on the front page story declaring his success in a high-profile case, and for good reason. An old acquaintance (over 100 years old) whom he had believed to be dead, arrives unexpectedly at the morgue following the article's publication. Suddenly, Henry must confront a dark chapter in his past, a chapter named Emily Adler.
1. Prologue: Breathless

Author's Note: I do not own Forever or its characters. I did, however, come up with the OC Emily Adler, though I borrowed the last name from Sherlock's femme fatale, Irene Adler. I'm new to FF, so be gentle with me on reviews, okay? I know about the Mary Sue danger for OC's, but that doesn't mean I won't fall into the trap. Sorry. If it looks like I'm falling that way, just let me know and I'll try to reign it back in. :)

Prologue: Breathless

The surface of the Thames parts suddenly to admit the head and shoulders of a young woman to the biting winter wind. The woman is, however, grateful to be exposed to the harsh conditions because they mean exposure to much-needed oxygen as well. The woman, ordinarily very attractive, is gasping like a landed fish in a most aesthetically displeasing way, her normally soft blonde curls flat and dull with the weight of a gallon of river water. One might think her first thought would be of the cold of gratitude for the simple privilege of breathing, but it is not.

 _It worked. I can scarcely believe it, the serum actually_ _worked_ _! That daft man was wrong, after all, and a good thing too, or I wouldn't be alive right now. He never said coming back was so… painful, though._

The woman hesitates. It's not supposed to hurt. She makes to strike out for shore to take stock of the potential damage to her body and get out of the freezing water, but suddenly notices something odd and nearly sinks from stopping dead still at the shock of it. She has on the same green dress that she was wearing when she entered the river… unexpectedly.

 _What on earth…? He always said that he came back completely naked. How delightful to think that I might have it easier than the Great Doctor with this "curse." I've never been able to agree with him that eternally youthful life is something to despair of._

She makes it to the shore, though it is unfamiliar to her. She concludes that the current must have carried her a great distance before she perished and was reborn like a waterlogged phoenix. London is nowhere in sight. Her keen blue eyes take in the countryside at a glance and discern no danger or lookers-on. She then turns her inspection upon herself. She is panicked to discover four bloody gashes, one on her back, one across her stomach, one on her left calf, and one on her right forearm. She curses softly, yet profusely.

 _Blast! The serum didn't work! I'm supposed to be utterly unharmed. Perhaps he had been right after all to dismiss our progress with the formula. Perhaps I didn't die and return, after all._

The young woman closes her eyes, shivering and soaked to the bone, and tries to recall the events following her abrupt entry of the river. She remembers cold, fierce currents dragging at her skirts, tumbling her further from help, further from _him_. Swirling confusion and blackness, not knowing which way was up, and the mind-numbing cold adding up to make years of experience swimming in the pond at her family's estate worthless. Chunks of debris and ice crash into her body, striking her painfully. A stray bit of undiscernible metal slices across her stomach and the taste of her own blood is stronger than the foulness of the murky filth of the river water for a moment. Her breath refuses to be held any longer and rushes out of her lungs, allowing the heavy water around her to force its way in. Her last conscious memory is raising her arm in a pathetic attempt to defend her face from the rocks on the quickly approaching bank. Pain: and then nothing but blackness until her next breath. She heaves a sigh, noticing for the first time how raw breathing feels in her abused throat. She is ready to curse again before finding shelter until she can make her way back to apologize to the man she blames for her near-drowning when she realizes that the agony of her injuries beginning to lessen. Afraid of shock or frostbite, she quickly examines the wound, only to find something extraordinary instead.

The gashes are _closing_. Little by little, the injuries are fading before her eyes. Her breathing eases as the rawness in her throat and lungs abates. She is grinning like a madwoman at this new discovery.

 _The serum_ _did_ _work, to some extent. I may not be immune to death, but I have some preliminary resistance to it. I would wager, if I had the time and equipment, I could improve upon that. What should have been life-threatening wounds have healed in a matter of minutes. Extraordinary!_

Her grin takes on a wicked cast as possibilities whirl through her mind like she had whirled through the currents of the Thames only moments before.

 _If I have the capacity for eternal youth, or at least delayed aging, I'll have ample time to track down that infernal man and make him suffer for the humiliation and heartbreak he made me to endure. Yes, I'll have_ _lifetimes_ _to dream up infinite ways to hurt him as he hurt me. Oh, the potential for the retribution I so deserve to bestow!_

The woman lifts her head, straightens her dress to hide the bloodstains and tears, sets her shoulders back, and strides off in the opposite direction from which she had come. If she was to have her revenge, she must hide inside a new identity and let the authorities believe her old self to be dead. Showing up in London alive and unhurt would raise too many questions. Despite the weather and the long road ahead, she smiles. Triumph, at her victory over death and her ex-colleague alike, washes over her.

 _I'm coming for you, you cad. As long as it takes, decades, centuries, I will endeavor to see you suffer at my hand. You will writhe under my heel like the snake you are, Henry Morgan._

A/N: That's the prologue! Too dramatic? Oh, well! Better than boring. Too mysterious? Still better than boring. If school doesn't get too crazy, I'll try to navigate fanfiction's uploady thing and post the first chapter by mid-August. Thanks for reading, beautiful people! Yes, you. You are beautiful.


	2. Chapter 1: An Old Friend

Chapter 1: Your Enemies Will Find You If You Get Your Dumb Face in the Paper

Henry frowned over the tabloid in his hand, disturbed by the front page. One wouldn't think New York's top Medical Examiner would have anything left that could disturb him, especially when said Medical Examiner had seen over 235 years of disturbing junk, but one would be wrong.

"Henry, why on earth are you so upset over being on the cover of the paper? Is the picture bad or something?" Jo asked her unofficial partner.

Henry made a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat. "I simply don't like being the subject of reporters' interest for just doing my job."

Jo rolled her eyes. "Henry, barely anyone reads that rag, anyway, especially not anybody you would know. It's not like it's the _Times_ or anything."

"All the same, I would prefer to avoid such attention, however small it may be," Henry replied.

Lucas swiveled around in his chair and joined the conversation. "I think that Dr. Morgan is just afraid that his enemies will see the article and find him," the assistant ME teased.

Henry glared in disapproval, prompting Lucas to raise his hands in surrender.

"I'm just sayin', Doc. You're pretty mum about anything concerning your life, especially your past. What are we supposed to think besides shady secrets are involved? My money's on you running from the Irish mob," Lucas defended himself.

It was Henry's turn to roll his eyes. "Very interesting theory, Lucas, but if I was hiding from the Irish mob, I wouldn't run to New York City, seeing as they have had a headquarters here since the early 1800's," he said.

Lucas tossed out a few more theories, Jo biting her lip to keep from pitching in a few of her own that she'd come up with when Henry got cagey about talking about his past. Henry rebutted and denied idea after idea, and Lucas got frustrated as his theories were shot down one after the other. Finally, he threw his hands in the air in defeat.

"Fine!" he huffed. "Henry is not under witness protection, an assassin for the British government, running from any form of organized crime, or a fugitive from justice. But, details aside, I still say he didn't like being in the paper because he was worried that his enemies would see it and come after him," Lucas insisted.

A lovely yet unfamiliar voice piped up from the back of the room: "Well, it's far too late for that, I'm afraid. I've already arrived," a beautiful blonde woman announced in a polished English accent from her position in the doorway. She was smartly dressed in grey stilettos and a vintage Audrey Hepburn style boat necked dress with a full skirt that fell just below her knees. It was pale grey and patterned with violets and forget-me-nots, a swirl of vibrant purple and blue. The cheerful flowers seemed at odds with Henry's violent reaction to the woman in the doorway.

Henry had been standing with his back to the door. His face drained of color and a look of dawning horror flooded in its place. He turned slowly to face the source of the voice that had held a prominent role in his nightmares for over a century. When he took in the appearance of the stranger, he paled even further. Jo thought that she had never seen Henry look so… afraid. Not when he was looking down the barrel of a killer's gun, not when she had accused him of murder on their first case together, not even when he had been chained to that awful torture thing had he ever looked so completely terrified.

"Hello, Henry darling," the woman purred. "Did you miss me?"

At that, the fearless Doctor Henry Morgan, who had showed her foaming on the lungs of an open corpse with excitement, did the last thing anyone in the room would have expected.

He fainted.

Jo dove towards her friend and colleague and managed to keep his head from cracking against the floor. He would have time later to reflect that it would have been most unfortunate if the unexpected guest had literally caused him to die of fright and subsequently disappear in front of the unsuspecting detective and Lucas. Detective Martinez gently lowered Henry to the floor of the morgue, then stood up and whipped her gun out in one fluid motion to point it at the stranger who had scared Henry so badly that he'd passed out.

"Who the heck are you?" Jo shouted at the woman in question.

She only smirked. "My name is Ms. Emily Adler. I'm awfully sorry about this. I didn't think I'd scare him that badly, but I did admittedly want to scare him a little, hence surprising him at work," she explained. She didn't look even slightly sorry. "I meant no harm, truly. I just wanted to see him jump a little."

"Why did you imply that you were an enemy of Henry's, then?" Jo questioned, not lowering the gun.

She smiled, a little bitterly. "I do have an old quarrel with him. He broke my heart. With the kind of –ahem- spitfire I was back in the day, I'm sure that if Henry had known I was alive, he would have looked over his shoulder for me and likely would have considered me an enemy after the incident that encompassed the last time we encountered each other," Ms. Adler explained. "Would you mind lowering the gun?"

"Not just yet," Jo answered.

She gave a huff of mirthless laughter. "Fair enough."

Lucas was a little dazed by how beautiful the odd woman was. He felt he could listen to her voice all day. It was therefore surprising that he managed to ask the burning question, "Why would Henry think you were dead?"

"Well, I fell into the Thames and went missing for a long time. It was an understandable conclusion to think me dead. That was why I wanted to see the look on his face when he realized I wasn't," Ms. Adler spoke calmly, despite the gun pointed at her chest and the unconscious man on the floor. "If you want to ask him to tell the story himself, he appears to be waking up," she pointed out.

Jo glanced at Henry and saw he was indeed stirring. She looked back at Emily Adler, hesitant to holster her weapon in the stranger's presence. Sensing this, Ms. Adler said, "You can put the gun away to tend to him. I'm certainly not going anywhere now that I finally found the scoundrel."

Jo reluctantly put her gun away and dropped to her knees at her partner's side. She shook his shoulder gently and called his name. "Henry, Henry, are you okay? Talk to me."

He groaned mightily and sat up slowly. "I'm fine," he assured her. "Did I faint?" A nod from Jo. "Ugh, how embarrassing. Is she still…"

"Hello, again, Henry dearest," Emily said brightly. "I am indeed still here. Before I tell you how, perhaps over tea sometime, I'm ever so eager for you to explain to your friends the nature of our relationship. You always were the better storyteller." Her smile was saccharine. "Don't worry. I'll jump in if you forget any pertinent details."

Henry sighed. "Alright, since you're so determined. I seem to remember there was no stopping you when you set your sights on something. In fact, that is where the whole affair really starts." He turned to Jo and Lucas. "I'll try to keep this as short as possible. You remember that I told you I used to be a "real" doctor? Well, in between physicians' jobs, I was doing some research into the nature of aging and how to prolong life. Ms. Adler was a graduate student who decided to assist me in my studies in pursuit of her lab credits. She was very passionate about the work as time went on, and I realized that she was perhaps too eager for results. Our trials with mice had been successful, but monkeys in the primate study were showing very little, if any, progress. It was going too slowly for the people supplying grant money and they were preparing to shut us down and cut off funding. I was discouraged by the lack of results—"

"But I knew we just needed a little more time," Ms. Adler interjected. "I knew our serum had the potential to do a lot of good, so I wasn't ready to give up and let them shut us down like Henry. I snuck in late at night and tinkered with the serum. I adjusted the formula and tested it on a monkey, with phenomenal results on the cellular level. I went straight to Henry to tell him the good news. It must have been 3 AM! I wanted to show it to the investors first thing in the morning, but he had a sudden crisis of conscience. He tried to tell me that submitting one test on one monkey with a new version of the formula and no time to examine long term effects was going in half-cocked, but the truth was—"

"That I had realized that what we were trying to do had the potential to be ethically reprehensible and could cause long-term negative effects on overpopulation and such if it were ever mass produced," Henry steered the narrative back in the right direction. "This is the reason that the Aeterna case caused me distress. It was anxiously close to deja-vu. I eventually had to admit to Ms. Adler that I thought it was dangerous and that I believed it would be best to let them shut down our small lab quietly and destroy all of the existing serum, even the written formulas. She was angry and vowed to prove me wrong. A week later, she called and apologized for her behavior. She said she wanted to discuss the matter calmly over tea. I agreed to meet her at a café near the river. It was winter, then, and it was one of the only places in the neighborhood with reliable heat. She told me that she had finally perfected the formula in secret during that past week and had decided to inject herself with the serum to impress the investors with her rather dramatic commitment to the project. I was already horrified that she'd injected herself with an untested substance, but she wanted me to help her test its effects in a most dangerous way, one that would have likely ended in her death," Henry said gravely.

"You had no way of knowing the test would be fatal. You were being overprotective as always. You show no regard for your own safety, so how can you expect me to care for my own. You are the one who set a poor example of how to be safe! How dare you pretend to care if I lived or died after what you did!" Ms. Adler did not shout, but spat the words with quiet venom. This was the first time in the exchange that she had lost her temper. She seemed to realize this and calmed down with eerie speed.

Henry softened a bit. "Just because I did not feel romantically toward you does not mean I never cared for your happiness and well-being," he said gently. He cleared his throat and resumed the story. "I refused angrily. I told her she was foolish to risk her life for the project, and she told me that she had not done it because it was a great endeavor but because it had been _my_ endeavor; _our_ endeavor. She confessed her feelings for me and said she was so fiercely determined to see this project succeed because it was something she saw us trying to build together. I told her that I did not return her affections and wanted to bury this project so deeply it never saw the light of day. She saw it as a betrayal. She took my rejection the wrong way—"

"You called me a child!" Ms. Adler fumed. "With a few sentences you tore apart the only things I had been living for for over two years: you and that dratted serum. My despair was great enough to swallow the sun. I took it the only possible way there was _to_ take it!"

"You are right," Henry said quietly.

"What?" she asked.

"I never saw it from your perspective before, and now I see that I was unintentionally cruel. And for that, and the pain I caused you, I am sorry," Henry said.

"Thank you," she said, calming down. "Now that I really think about it, I suppose running from the café into the street may have been a bit overly melodramatic," Ms. Adler admitted.

"You ran into the road because Henry wouldn't date you?" Jo was incredulous.

"Have you even _looked_ at him? Heard him speak about something he's passionate about or rattle off obscure history in detail? Tasted his unspeakably delicious cooking?" Ms. Adler was equally incredulous. Jo nodded. "How are you not half in love with this impossible man already? Are you courting a saint with the body of a male model or something?" Jo shook her head. "Well, then I don't understand you. Besides," she waves a dismissive hand, "there was very little traffic."

"There was enough," Henry interceded, once again reigning in the conversation. "You were struck by a cab and knocked over the railing into the freezing waters. The current was fast that day, and I lost sight of you the second you went back under. I insisted on helping the local police search for you in the river for hours. When it grew dark and we still had seen no trace of you, the police gave up and insisted I go with them to the station to make a formal statement and then go home. You were declared missing for a week, then assumed dead. I kept an eye on the newspapers, hoping you'd miraculously resurface, but I saw no sign of you. When a job opportunity at a hospital halfway across the country came up, I accepted, destroyed our work, closed the lab, and left London behind along with all of the old memories. I felt guilty for years about how I handled that conversation. I felt responsible for your death. You surprised me very nearly out of my skin, but nonetheless I am truly glad to see you alive and well," Henry said, finishing his end of the tale. "Whatever happened to you that you were gone for so long?"

"I was heartbroken. After somehow managing to survive and haul myself onto land, I decided it would be best to let my old identity die and start over somewhere without you or anyone else I'd known. I said goodbye to my brother, my only remaining family, and left the country with forged papers. I traveled the world, found enlightenment, started a business empire, and got over you. Admittedly, there is progress still to be made on that last front, but you are right. I _am_ well. When I saw your picture in the paper, I thought I'd pop over and surprise you, sure, but I also wanted an apology and to let you know I'm fine. I really am," Ms. Adler explained. "So, what do say to tea? When are you free next?"

Henry blinked carefully. "I would say that I am entirely shocked you seem to have forgiven me so easily after all this time, but am glad of it. I'm also reasonably certain you don't plan to embed a knife in my kidney as I imagined you might be tempted to. Therefore, I would be delighted to catch up over tea tomorrow afternoon. Does 3:00 work for you?" he asked.

"Certainly," she replied. "Is the Finch's Nest alright with you?"

Henry was puzzled. "You know of it? It's a relatively small and undiscovered local establishment," he commented.

Ms. Adler smiled in a somewhat disconcerting manner. "I forgot to mention how remarkable it is that I've lived in New York for a number of years and we never ran across one another," she said carelessly. "After all, I run a somewhat large motorcycle business and you seem to have a habit of getting into newsworthy trouble."

"I was wondering how you got here so fast when the article was only printed this morning," Jo remarked.

"Yes, as it turns out, Henry's place of work is only a little over 25 blocks from my office," Ms. Adler mentioned. "It took no time at all to get here once I knew where to go."

"Well, that is my usual tea room, so that's as fine a place to meet as any," Henry agreed.

"Excellent," Ms. Adler chirped. "I shall look forward to it, Henry darling."

Emily Adler shot a saucy wink over her shoulder as she turned and practically sashayed from the morgue. Lucas and Henry were speechless and still. Jo was silent and motionless, but fumed under the surface. Who was this woman, this _stranger_ , who had apparently caused Henry years of needless guilt over her "death," to waltz into the morgue, scare him for her own amusement, then invite him to tea of all things and _flirt_ with him after appearing from nowhere? _No one,_ she wanted to think. But clearly she was _someone_ who had been important in Henry's past, that murky place she knew little to nothing about. Yet this distasteful person had actually been there. With him. The detective decided then and there to be unobtrusively present at that tea house. She told herself it was to protect Henry. After all, she had never seen him so afraid as when he had seen Emily Adler lurking in the doorway. Yes, he had been afraid of her, and Jo would follow them protect her friend. It was probably long past her turn to protect the man who never hesitated to put himself in front of her when there was danger on one of their cases. Who knew? Maybe she'd even learn a thing or two about the odd doctor on her "investigation."

Eventually, the pause in activity and talking became awkward and work resumed normally enough. A simple case for once, straightforward traffic accident, so everything was tied up quickly and there would be no need to come in to wrap up loose ends tomorrow. Meaning that the parallel plans of three people, each with different motives, would go forward unhindered.

-End of Chapter-


	3. Chapter 2: The Tea Shop

Author's Note: I can't remember if I've mentioned this, but the story is set after we learn the truth about Abigail but before the season finale and Adam's weapon, yada, yada, yada. So we haven't yet arrived at the iconic "It's a long story" scene with Henry and Jo and the incriminating photo. Or the one where Adam is incapacitated. Just FYI.

Chapter 2: The Backstory You've Been Waiting For

Jo arrived at the Finch's Nest tea room and learned from the hostess that Ms. Adler had reserved a corner booth in the back and had asked not to be disturbed after the tea had been brought. Jo was tempted to flash her badge, but because this wasn't an official investigation, she slipped the girl a twenty and said she'd like it if she could be discreet about her presence in the cafe, and if she could be left alone as well with a pot of coffee. The hostess accepted and led her to the empty booth behind the one Ms. Adler had reserved. Jo slid in and pretended to look at a menu while gathering her thoughts. It was a good thing she had it concealing her face, because at that moment, the bell above the door chimed and a quick glance confirmed that it was Ms. Adler, dressed in yet another vintage dress and stilettos, this time both red, followed by a solemn Henry. The two were seated at the corner booth. The place was crowded, so neither one noticed her. When her coffee arrived, she blended right in. Adler was seated against the wall, facing in Jo's direction. Henry sat across from her on the side that bordered the seat opposite Jo's, with his back to her. With the way the tables were arranged, she couldn't see him, but she could see half of Adler's face out of the corner of her eye. Adler waved away the proffered menus and smiled.

"Just a pot of Darjeeling and cream, please. Thank you," she said. The waiter nodded and moved away.

She must have ordered ahead, because it was back in under two minutes that Henry and Adler passed in silence then the waiter whisked away again. Jo wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but it wasn't for Henry to get right to the deep dark secrets part of the conversation with impatience. He was ever the gentleman, but when Adler attempted to initiate the conversation with small talk, he interrupted.

"Let's skip the pleasantries and get to the point, shall we? How is it even possible that you're still alive? I can only presume the newest version of the serum worked since you're sitting here," he said.

"You always were one to avoid meaningless prattle. I should have remembered. To answer your question, it did work... to a certain extent. I'm not half so indestructible as the original," she smirked a little here, "but I can recover from all but the most grievous of injuries and my ageing is vastly delayed, if not halted altogether," she explained.

Wait, what?

"You don't appear to have aged a day since the last time I saw you, Miss Adler," Henry remarked.

His tone wasn't complimentary, merely factual, which made Jo feel inexplicably better, until she realize that it was really weird that she looked the same after apparent years of being presumed dead.

"The decades have been kinder to you than me, it would seem, Miss Adler," he continued.

Wait, decades? Jo was starting to wonder if this conversation was metaphorical or full of inside jokes she didn't understand because if she took what they were saying literally, then Adler was souped up with some kind of eternal youth serum or something. Which sounded like something out of a comic it was true, though, it _would_ explain why Henry got so worked up about the Aeterna case better than some failed project from his post-graduate days. He had never responded to her question about why he chose to study death. Maybe this little bout of espionage would shed some light on the answer. Jo's attention was recaptured by Adler's response.

"Don't assume to know how time has treated me, Henry. I have fought for my right to a peaceful existence just as much as you have. You used to call me Emily, you know. What happened?" she asked softly, voice laced with sadness where Jo would have expected venom.

"You died," Henry said simply. "You died and it was my fault and I carried that guilt for all this time. I paid for your funeral when your parents refused to claim you even in death. I buried an empty coffin and mourned you, put flowers on your grave every time I returned to England. When I called you by your first name, you were my friend. Then you were gone and I find out that you were alive all these years and you expect me simply to go back to the way things always were when you _deceived_ me and allowed me to grieve for you when you were _fine_. It isn't as though you didn't know where I was. You were always brilliant, even as a student. I simply do not believe that you have lived in this city a number of blocks from my place of work and had no idea where I was. You could have talked to me ages ago, but instead you chose to make an entrance."

Jo had seldom seen Henry angry. This was not like those times. He never raised his voice. He didn't seem like he was tightly controlling his rage. He was quiet. He wasn't upset with this woman. He was weary, more so than anyone his age had a right to be. His tone was that of an exhausted parent who is forced for the hundredth time to reprimand a problem child. Henry had always seemed indomitable to Jo, a pillar of strength in even the weirdest of circumstances, so to see him so thoroughly _tired_ made Jo anxious. It made her want to punch Adler square across the jaw.

"You're right, Henry. That was in poor taste. I should have made contact with you sooner. Who knows what kind of adventures we could have had had we been together all this time? I should have known it was you and not my feckless relations who saw to the arrangements. I know it isn't enough, but I am sorry for putting you through yet another loss when I was perfectly alright," Adler apologized sincerely.

Henry's voice was gentle. "I'm not certain I forgive you, but I do believe I should thank you in one respect," he said.

Adler was puzzled, and Jo was right there with her. "And what respect is that, love?" she asked him.

"If you had let me know you were alive, I might never have returned to the work I always wanted to do as a physician. I might never have left research to practice medicine, and if I hadn't become a doctor, I never would have met Abigail, or Abraham. So, without your disappearance, I would likely never have had either of those two wonderful people in my life. And even though I lost Abigail, I am still grateful I had the chance to know and love her, so I suppose I should thank you," Henry explained.

Jo was confused. Wasn't Abraham an old friend of his father's? How had Henry becoming a doctor lead to their meeting? And how could he thank this woman who had caused him so much grief and guilt, including, she supposed, the loss of Abigail. Jo couldn't understand what kind of issues Abigail would have had to drive her to leave Henry. How could anyone divorce someone so caring, so brilliant, so respectful? Jo could only conclude that the problem stemmed from Abigail, not her friend and partner she had come to care about so deeply.

Adler's smile was tight. "Well, it certainly wasn't my intention to drive you into the arms of another woman, however indirectly, but I'm not one to be humble in the face of gratitude, so you are welcome," she replied. "I've done a little... research on you these years I've been away, but I only know the facts and figures of your past that doesn't include or precede me, or what I could drag out of reluctant neighbors, coworkers, and the occasional friend after you left someplace. So, my point is, I suppose, that I invited you here to catch up and I would like to hear from the horse's mouth exactly what you've been up to all this time, Henry darling."

Jo had to admit that she was curious, too, but it felt suddenly wrong to eavesdrop on casual conversation. It no longer felt like an investigation, merely an invasion of Henry's privacy. She felt guilty for spying, and now that it seemed pretty clear that, while the woman might have delusions of indestructibility superpowers, she didn't actually intend to harm Henry physically. She seemed more like an ex-girlfriend wannabe that desperately wanted Henry back. If Henry's weary parent tone was anything to go by, though, the detective didn't have anything to worry about. If Henry's touchy past with Abigail and lack of present with Molly told her anything, the last thing Henry needed in his life was another complicated blonde woman. Jo would wait until they started talking again and then get up and leave as unobtrusively as possible. Unlike Adler, she wasn't going to solve the mystery that was Henry Morgan by spying and snooping. If and when Henry wanted to tell her, he would. He was a tough nut to crack, but Jo had some experience with that.

Henry sighed. "Ms. Adler, it is somewhat reprehensible that you have violated my private records. As I know nothing of what you have been up to, why don't you start?"

"Fine," Adler said stiffly. "I'll start by telling you how sloppy you've gotten. I never would have been able to find records of you, even though I knew what I was looking for, if you hadn't kept the same name, stayed in the same place too long, made so many waves. Honestly, Henry. Are you even _trying_ to be careful?"

Jo Martinez had been preparing to get up and leave them to their conversation, but stopped rising from her seat and sat back down slowly. False names? Moving around? Henry's past was murky, and he was secretive about it, sure, but she made it sound like he was running from something, or hiding. Jo had decided to leave them alone, but she now convinced herself she had to stay, to make sure Henry was okay.

"You know very well I'm not a convincing liar. Using my given name as often as possible made things easier," Henry protested. "And I move around enough."

"Within the same city! I understand the draw of New York, but there is a line between fondness and clinging to memories of the past, and you have crossed it. I am... sympathetic to the desire to hold onto the better times, and to getting caught up in a past as storied and long as yours, but you must remember that there is a future that you must exercise caution in order to see. People are more willing than ever to believe the impossible. Ever hear of the _National Enquirer_ or _World Weekly News_? If people can believe in aliens impersonating Elvis Presley, they can believe in your story in half a heartbeat. What good will your years of life experience be to anyone if you are caught?" Adler spoke passionately.

Jo didn't like the sound of this. Caught? For what? By who? Was someone after Henry?

"You worry too much. I am perfectly capable of looking after myself. My secret is as safe as it's ever been. I _am_ cautious," Henry insisted.

Jo suppressed a snort. Cautious? Henry had exactly zero self-preservation instinct. If he thought it was "the right thing to do," he would tackle an armed gunman, jump in front of a speeding car, or step in front of a bullet's path to save someone. She had already witnessed him do all those things. Which was why she had a hard time believing that the reason Henry was running, if he was running, could be because of anything bad on his part. Henry _was_ a terrible liar. He was just too honest, too genuine a man for her to believe him capable of severe wrongdoing. She had to laugh sometimes when she thought of her first case with him, when she'd accused him of murder. Henry wasn't the type. After being forced to take Clark Walker's life in self-defense, he'd been messed up for weeks. He wouldn't hurt anybody who didn't deserve it. Not her Henry.

"You're about as cautious as a skydiver without a parachute," Adler echoed Jo's sentiments. "As many times as you've screwed up and showed your hand, it's no wonder Adam caught up to you."

Adam? As in Clark Walker's pretentious fake name indicative of his delusion of immortality? What did Henry's now-dead former stalker have to do with anything?

"You know about Adam?" Henry asked, incredulous.

"I know him personally. Us immortals have to stick together. Although I don't appreciate him toying with you like he did, you must admit sending a deluded soul in his place to gauge your reaction to him was a brilliant move. And it had the added bonus of closing the door on your stalker case and eliminating the police as a resource against him should you need one," Adler stated simply, as though forcing Henry to murder a crazy person was an acceptable chess move. "Now, I see your disgust with me, the disapproval. Don't make that face just yet. I am saddened that they play resulted in the poor man's death, but it was clever not to show his own face. And the only reason I associate at all with the psychopath is because he has some legitimately good advice concerning hiding in plain sight, passing yourself off as your own descendant when you're going to outlive your lawyer's grandchildren, the works. He was once a good man, if his stories are true. If they aren't, then he's a considerably better liar than you, or me. He has only lived too long, been hurt too often, seen too much. Sound familiar? He's become jaded and no longer sees the value in human life. This is where I disagree with him. Would I be willing to kill someone in the interest of self-preservation? Yes. But we were human, once. I still remember what it's like to feel temporary. Cold-blooded murder is not something I can see myself being capable of," Adler finished, calm and placid, like discussing murder was as inconsequential as debating color schemes.

So Henry's stalker hadn't been Clark Walker, and he was still alive. Jo broke out in a cold sweat. Talk of immortality aside, it was creepy as heck that there was still someone out there who was obsessed with Henry, who maybe wanted to hurt him. For the first time in this conversation, Jo was afraid. Afraid for Henry.

"Adam is not a safe person to make acquaintance with, however inconsequential you deem your interactions. As you say, he has lived a long time, and that means he knows far more ways to outsmart either of us than we do concerning him. Please, stay away from him, for your own sake," Henry pleaded.

"And yours, I presume," Adler replied smugly. "If you're concerned that I've told him anything, don't be. He didn't need me to reveal your weaknesses. He's capable enough of finding those on his own, no matter how I tried covertly to prevent it. He has a lot of resources. He's much better acquainted with technology than you, and he has a veritable network of information on nearly everything. I'd be careful of making him angry, if I were you," she insisted.

"Weaknesses?" Henry asked.

Adler heaved a sigh and looked sadly at Henry. "Your emotional connections. Abraham, Detective Martinez, even Dr. Wahl. Friends are a liability in our lives. Whether we outlive them or they turn away from our strangeness or they are used to hurt us the way weapons can't, inevitably their loss will cause us pain. I have left behind the pretense that I am allowed something so precious as meaningful relationships," she lamented. "But it doesn't have to be that way. Imagine it, Henry dearest. You and I, we could live forever, side by side. Even when I was so angry with you that I thought I could breathe fire for the intensity of it, I never stopped loving you. I lied when I said I spent these years getting over you. The truth is that I tried, but I never could get past my overwhelming desire to have you in my arms again," Adler said in a rush. She placed her hand over Henry's and squeezed. "Say something, love."

Jo waited for his reply, holding her breath. Had she been wrong about Henry's feelings? She'd been wrong to think that the woman had mostly gotten over her crush on Henry. It wasn't until she recognized the burning sensation in her gut as jealousy that she realized she had lied to Ms. Adler in the morgue. She was more than half in love with Henry already. Crap. What the heck was she supposed to do about that? She couldn't think of a darned thing.

"Ms. Ad- Emily, my feelings for you have not changed since that day at the river. I have considerable affection for you, but it is not romantic in nature. I have only ever seen you as a friend or perhaps a younger sister. You are a lovely, brilliant, gifted young woman, but I do not love you the way you want me to," Henry's reply was gentle, but firm.

Adler's face fell and darkened. She pulled her hand back across the table without any resistance from Henry. Jo felt relief until Emily Adler began to speak again.

"You still see me as a child. Age difference never bothered you about Abigail," she all but spat the words.

"Emily..." Henry began.

"No! You don't get to say my name, not like that. Not like an apology," Adler interrupted. "This is about Detective Martinez, isn't it? I see the way you look at each other when you think the other isn't looking. Have you truly gone so blind as not to know your own heart? I've seen your case files, put together the dots when the information wasn't said outright. How many times have you thrown yourself on a sword for your precious _partner_ , the lovely detective? You aren't even trying to keep your secret from her. You've all but told her outright. Do you seriously think she won't betray you like Nora? That she won't leave, like Abigail? She's a police officer Henry. There's no chance of growing old together. One day, sooner or later, a bullet will get past her vest, a suspect will knife her while she's reading his rights, a car chase will end in a crash that snaps her neck. You won't be there to protect her forever, not every time."

Henry's voice was low and deadly calm. "Is that a threat, Ms. Adler?"

"Merely an observation," she replied. "She's much cleverer than your past love interests. All I'd have to say is 'Look closer at the manifests for the _Empress of Africa_ ' and she'd be off like a shot, have your whole history unraveled in a matter of days, if that. You'd be surprised how often the name Henry Morgan pops up in the history books in lesser-known chapters."

"You wouldn't dare," Henry growled.

"I won't have to. You're doing a good enough job of bumbling yourself into a corner you can't escape from without my help. I'll keep your secrets," Adler promised as she stood and gathered her things. She paid the waitress and turned to go, but couldn't resist looking over her shoulder and letting fly a last flippant remark. "The question is: Can you?"

With that, she turned her back on Henry fully and exited the cafe. Henry leaned forward over the table then, enough for her to see him put his head in his hands then run his fingers aggressively through his brown locks. He heaved a sigh and leaned back again. Jo got up quietly and swung her bag over her shoulder. If she hadn't been straining her ears to listen, she might never have heard him mutter over the quiet roar of the busy restaurant, "What on earth have I done?"

Jo had a lot to ponder as she left the shelter of the cafe for the crowded street. Adler's cryptic warnings, Henry's references to a wealth of secrets, the identity of Nora, what all of the impossible things they treated as commonplace could possibly mean, and last but not least: her feelings for the increasingly enigmatic Doctor Henry Morgan. Jo was lost in thought when she noticed a commotion of red fabric across the street. Emily Adler was apologizing to a man she'd apparently bumped into, then she turned and looked straight at Detective Martinez. She smiled like the Cheshire cat and nodded at her before vanishing into the crowd of people making their way through New York's foot traffic.

Jo was deeply unnerved. Did this mean Adler had known she was there the whole time? if so, then the hint about the _Empress_ was purposeful, and that meant she should probably look into it. Henry had seemed rather twitchy during that case, what with the obsession with the ship and the breaking and entering with his elderly roommate. Perhaps it was about time she engaged in some research of her own. She never would have admitted to herself in a million years that her sudden willingness to do what Ms. Adler had done and delve into Henry's private past without his permission stemmed from a desire to distract herself from thinking too hard about her budding feelings for the odd doctor. But off she went to the public library to do a little digging.

Henry, meanwhile had pried himself away from the table and started towards home. He thought he saw a woman turn a corner that looked like Jo, but he brushed it off as his imagination since he had her on his mind. It was time to talk to Abraham. His son was always good at providing a fresh perspective on a problem when he was set in his ways and patterns of thought.

Emily Adler was still smiling to herself. The detective had taken the bait perfectly. She had known that the other woman was there from the moment she sat down. Henry _must_ be getting sloppy if he couldn't spot a tail with so familiar a face. Emily had seen in Jo's face that she'd pursue the leads after their brief exchange on the street. Soon enough, she'd get caught up in the research and know everything about Henry there was to know from public records. Their relationship would fall apart in the face of his deception and there would be nowhere for her beloved to turn for comfort other than her own arms. Yes, her plan was working beautifully. It was only a matter of time before he would be hers. After all, if the players didn't perform their parts well enough, she could always give a little push in the right direction. In _Detective Martinez's_ case, that direction was off a very tall building.


	4. Chapter 3: Jo Gets a History Lesson

Author's Note: I totally made up the regiment number. I couldn't find out which regiment was actually helping out the Auschwitz survivors as far as England goes. I also couldn't remember the name of the psychopath who imitated famous serial killers that Jo shot. Many apologies for any historical, architectural, or canonical inaccuracies. Please correct me if you see something that doesn't make sense and I'll do my best to address it. Hugs to all my lovely readers and thank you for the kind reviews! Also: apologies for the awkward lack of transition between some parts. Fanfiction refuses to accept my pretty line breaks.

Chapter 3: The Henry Morgans of History

Jo hesitated on the edge of the stairs leading to the New York Public Library. Now that she was cooling down from her anger at Emily Adler's smug face and overt flirting, she was having second thoughts. What could records about the _Empress of Africa_ have to do with Henry's past? Even if it turned out to be relevant, was it her right to dig into it? Henry knew so much about her, how she had a bit of a strained relationship with her ex-con father, how badly she missed Shaun, her tendencies to drink away the pain, how she liked her coffee, and more. She had made herself so open to him, so vulnerable. And while he had been so caring with her, had stopped calling her 'Detective' all the time, had shared a couple of details with her about his life, had invited her over for dinner and let her sleep on the couch, she knew very little about him and his past. She shook off her hesitation and hardened her resolve, striding up the marble stairs with renewed purpose. Best case scenario: the information meant something and she'd finally have a couple pieces to the puzzle that was Henry Morgan. Worst case: the information Adler seemed to have purposefully dropped was useless and she was just trying to distract Jo from keeping an eye on her, which meant her snooping wouldn't mean anything anyway because there was nothing to find. It was as close to a win-win situation as it could get. She pushed through the doors into the grand lobby and made her way to a computer to look up where she might find the information on the _Empress_. After about ten minutes of looking, she finally saw the entry she needed, but when she clicked the link to get the call number, big red letters proclaiming that the materials were unavailable were stamped across the screen. Irritated, she went over to the desk clerk and asked about the problem.

"Oh, all our paper copies are missing," said the young man at the desk, apologetically.

"What? How?" Jo demanded.

The guy shrugged unhelpfully. "I dunno. They went missing a few years back, and nobody knows where they went. I think they were probably misfiled somewhere and will be found the next time somebody organizes our mess of a back room, but my boss is convinced they were stolen, so he won't let me put us on hold for a day or two for us to check for them and any other records that have disappeared over the years. But you can look at the online copy on the computer upstairs. Library's not that much in demand anymore, except to have free wifi and a place to nap, so you should have the whole room pretty much to yourself," he explained.

Jo nodded when he told her to ask if she needed anything else, then followed his directions up more stairs and quickly found the computer in the genealogy section. She sat down at the machine, looked up the documents again, then clicked on the link to open them. Why they didn't have this feature on all the computers was a mystery to her, but she was glad for the privacy as well as the chair that the catalogue computer had lacked. It took her a long time to decipher the old timey cramped cursive handwriting because the 'online copy' was actually a scan of the original documents, and even then, she had to read the manifest twice before she caught it. At the bottom of the page, it read: _**Doctor Henry Morgan Jr, deceased April 7, 1814, cause of death- gunshot wound to the heart by Captain Fields for interference with work and insubordinate behaviour.**_ That gave her pause. Okay, that was totally weird. And probably what Adler had wanted her to see. Was this man Henry's ancestor? She kept looking through other records about the ship and found out that it was owned by the Morgan shipping company. If the Henry Morgans Sr. and Jr. had been Henry's ancestors, then it would explain why Henry had been so obsessed with what had happened to the ship and its unfortunate human cargo. If his family had owned a slave ship that had sunken and killed all the people on board, someone like him would feel guilty for the infamous legacy of their family. He told her that three hundred souls had died and that it was just as important to solve their demise as the current victim. She had thought he was being weird or misguidedly noble at the time, but now she understood. She understood, and even though it was one tiny mystery about him in the grand scheme of his secrets, she understood him a little better than she had before, and supposedly that was the whole reason for snooping in the first place. Jo paused when she reconsidered her train of thought for a moment. It _was_ pretty tiny a thing to figure out about Henry, so why would this be what Adler pointed her to? Jo remembered then something else Adler had said: _You'd be surprised how often the name Henry Morgan pops up in the history books in lesser-known chapters._

Jo knew then she'd have a lot more digging to do before she found the truth. But where to start? If Henry had been twitchy on the ship case because of family ties, then maybe some of the other cases he'd been weird about would point her in the right direction to look for more Henrys. Thinking back, she thought the best places to start would be the tenements from the case with the boxer, army records and such from WWII because of the stolen art case, Jack the Ripper from the copycat case, and of course, Abe's mother's case. That wouldn't be in the library, but her investigation was allowed to have multiple sources of information. She'd have to be careful about using police resources too much or Lieu would smell trouble and crack down on her, and Henry could find out. Caught up in her plans about how to solve the mystery of Henry Morgan, she never noticed that her thoughts had turned towards how best to hide what she was doing, which might indicate that her intentions did not justify her actions enough to tell her boss or her friend about her research project.

Hours later, Jo had found out the following things: a Henry Morgan had been arrested for sneaking into the tenements to treat patients repeatedly against threats by Mr. Delgros' ancestor (no wonder Henry seemed to have distaste for the man), another Henry Morgan had been the first medical examiner on the final victim accredited to Jack the Ripper (so that's why he had a copy of the original case notes), and that there were far too many missing records in the areas she was looking at as well as just too much information on WWII for her to comb it all for more Henrys before the library closed. She gathered up the few hard copies she'd tracked down and read cover to cover, closed out the document browser, placed the tomes on the reshelving cart, and left the library just as the clerk from earlier was shooing out patrons and reaching for the light switch. She went home to eat and sleep and think about everything. When a case was giving her trouble connecting the dots, she made a file to organize all of the information and go through what she was allowed to bring home at home. So, when she settled at the coffee table with reheated Thai food and a giant mug of coffee, she had a notebook and a pen in front of her as well as her meal. She wrote down all the stuff she'd learned in black and wrote her observations around them in red. She had made a couple of photocopies of the more pertinent pages that were in the books and highlighted the important parts. There was no way to print any of the digital copies, so she had written messy and quick in her own personal shorthand. Now she was copying it out more neatly with spaces between the lines for her own thoughts. Even with the double spacing, her added commentary, and half a day of research, she only filled up two pages. She sighed heavily. It was going to take a lot more work and a little more creativity for her to find what she needed. Heck, she wasn't even sure what she was looking for. her job took up a lot of time, and at the rate it would slow her down to having to squeeze out time from between shifts, she wouldn't even make it through the WWII leads for a month. Even with the forcible time off for therapy after shooting that man and for the time she got shot and the time she crashed her car into a barrier, she had accumulated a lot of personal days. Maybe she could take a little time off- but that would make Henry suspicious. She hadn't even wanted to miss work with a bullet hole in her shoulder. He'd know something was up for sure. She sighed again as she resigned herself to having to work on this for a very long time before making any progress. _But it's worth it to finally figure Henry out_ , she reminded herself. She wasn't one to give up once she had her mind set on something, especially not when the research was just getting good.

As luck would have it, there was a long stretch of slow days at work. She pretended to be bored to death, like she would have been ordinarily, but internally she was thrilled. Light caseloads meant getting off early and getting off early meant she could hit the police archives or the library and keep digging. She was sure Henry knew something. She knew she couldn't stop glancing at him from the corner of her eye, head swimming with all she had learned. Within the week, she had gone through stacks of WWII army registers and obscure records, and nearly at the bottom of the pile, she found it. A Henry Morgan had been a British army doctor who served in the field in Germany with the 11th regiment who treated liberated Auschwitz prisoners. Since so many other Henry Morgans were turning out to be doctors f some kind, she decided to see if any more of them could be found in hospital or military records in New York or England. When she realized she couldn't narrow down hospitals in either location yet, though, she chose to quit for today and go home to organize her thoughts. Next round of research would take her to the details about Sylvia Blake, Abe's mother. She wished she knew Abe's last name because it would make it easier to find out about his father, who was likely an important part of why Sylvia had disappeared. She didn't want to ask him, though, for fear of stirring up sad memories for her friend's roommate and of him telling Henry what she was up to.

Work picked up for a couple days, so she couldn't get into the file room until late Friday night. She moved against the flow of traffic headed home in the precinct hallway, intent on slipping in before anybody noticed she hadn't left with the shift change. She was two feet away from placing her hand on the doorknob to the archives when she heard her name called. She turned around and there was Henry, coat in hand, ever-present scarf around his neck, warm smile that made her knees soften. She put a hand on the wall to steady herself for a moment, internally cursing her foolish girly leg joints for all but collapsing because a cute guy smiled at her. _Cute? Dang, If I don't have it bad already, I'm halfway there. He's a coworker, and I can't-_ her thought was interrupted by the man in question.

"Jo," he addressed her happily. "Do you have dinner plans? Abe is making lasagna, and he always makes enough for more than two people. Would you like to come over?"

Jo hesitated for half a second. She really wanted to look into Abe's mother's case some more, but if she was doing this project _for_ Henry, it would be stupid to turn down his company in favor of it. Besides, Abe's cooking was amazing, and maybe she could ask him about his last name if Henry stepped out for a moment.

So she smiled and said, "Of course, Henry. You know Abe's meals are way better than anything I can microwave at home."

"That is an understatement, detective," Henry said lightheartedly.

She punched him gently in the shoulder. "Hey!" she protested.

Henry raised his hands in surrender. "That was a comment on the microwave's proficiency at fixing food, not yours," he apologized.

"What is your issue with microwaves, or cell phones, or any modern technology for that matter?" Jo wondered.

"It's not that I don't understand their usefulness or their appeal, but in my opinion, microwaves ruin food. As for everything else, when I attempt to use technology of most kinds, my skill with it is typically found... somewhat lacking," he explained.

"You put metal in one and blew it up, didn't you?" she teased him.

His embarrassed silence was answer enough. 

Dinner was delicious as always, and conversation had been warm and flowing. The evening was pleasant enough to eat on the terrace, so that was what they had done. When Henry stepped inside to wash the dishes and insisted on Jo and Abe staying outside to talk to let him do the work, Jo saw her opportunity. She thought it was best to start off casually.

"So, Abe," she began. "I've eaten at your house on a number of occasions and even slept on your couch, but I don't even know much about you or where you come from. What's your last name?"

Abe had been taking a sip of his iced tea, but her question made him choke on it once. Well, so much for casual.

"Abe, you okay?" Jo asked him, concerned for the elderly man.

He waved her off. "I'm fine," he said, glancing at the door Henry had disappeared through. "But, to answer your question, we, that is Henry and I, only learned recently who my birth parents were. I was rescued from Auschwitz when I was a baby and adopted by an army doctor and a nurse. I always took their last name... Blake. But my biological parents were Jews from Poland and their last name was Weinraub."

"Where did you grow up?" Jo asked, no longer prying to find out information on his mother's case.

"Oh, all over. Pops had saved some money, so we traveled the world. As a kid, I didn't much appreciate the constant moving, but now I'm glad that I got to see the English countryside and learn Dutch and a hundred other things. But eventually, we came to New York and moved around in the city until I got drafted to 'Nam. I bounced around awhile on my own. Didn't come back for anything but holidays and some scattered visits until Mom went missing," he trailed off here, looking a little sad. Jo felt sorry that she had been responsible for starting the train of thought that led him to the dismal memories, but she had to know something, something she'd been curious about since (Lucas's) comment that day in the morgue.

"What was your father doing during this time?" she asked. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. This isn't an interrogation."

He smiled a little at that. "No, it's okay," he insisted. "Dad was, well he kinda fell apart. One day he came home from work and her stuff was gone and there was only a note that said she needed some time to work things out for herself. He gave her a week, then two, then started panicking. He was sure something awful had happened. And I guess it had, but all he knew is that she was gone and not coming back. When the police looked and looked but never found a sign of her, it was clear she'd left us, left him. But he refused to accept it. He wanted to believe she was just lost or in trouble and that he could find her and rescue her from whatever and bring her home. He went a little off the rails. When I got there to check on him, the whole living room was covered with cork boards covered in research, maps, photos, those little red strings with push pins to connect different things. Papers all over the floor. It looked like a war room. I convinced him to get some sleep and cleaned it all up and shoved it in a storage unit while he was asleep. I told him I threw it away and that it was time he accepted that whatever the reason, she wasn't coming back and likely didn't want to be found. He never quite got over it, her leaving without saying goodbye. He had been married before that, and from what I know of her, she was a real piece of work who broke his heart, too. He died not long after when I threw out his obsessive research."

"I'm so sorry, Abe," Jo apologized. She hadn't known it would be a story of such heartbreak. She figured his dad had just been a jerk who had been the reason his wife ran away and hid. She still didn't know the reason she left in the first place, but the detective was done bringing up bad memories for the nice old man who had just fed her lasagna.

'It's okay. It was a long time ago. At least I've finally got a little closure about what happened to Mom. This was her recipe, you know," he mentioned, clearly changing the subject to happier times.

Jo smiled and went with it and let the subject drop. "It was wonderful, Abe."

Henry came out again and the topics turned more lighthearted. Jo bid them goodnight and swung by a craft store on the way home for a cork board, string, and push pins. Jo knew the takeaway from Abe's story wasn't "here's a good way to organize your obsessive research" but the boards and pins were actually a really good idea. She also liked the concept of adding maps to it, so she printed out maps of places she knew the Henry Morgans had been and marked their known locations in green and probable ones in blue. When she couldn't find good maps of New York in enough detail on the web, she went to a corner store and purchased a cab driver's' atlas and ripped the pages out to pin on the boards. She was up too late reorganizing her research, but once she got going looking back through everything to know where to put it, she noticed details and came up with ideas that she hadn't before. Even the small progress was she knew it, it was morning. When she had been putting everything together, she had noticed a lot of long gaps between the Henrys. She decided to return to the library to try and sketch out the branches of her Henry's family tree after she was done looking into Abe's mother's case. She scribbled a note to herself about it, itching to start, but feeling like it was more important to look into Sylvia's case, even though it might have little to do with the Morgan family, because of what Abe had said about closure a few hours ago. He had said he had it, but he didn't, not really. All they knew was that it had been suicide: she slit her own throat after she'd been forced into a car with a strange man and then drove it off the road. Why? Who was the man? The case had seemingly dead-ended, but she felt she owed it to Abe, and to Henry who seemed too invested in the case, to devote some of her frenetic energy to this cause before resuming her own search for information. It had occurred to her to simply ask Henry about everything, but she'd ignored the impulse for too long and now she was in too deep to tell him she'd been snooping around without losing his trust. _Maybe I don't deserve it, doing this behind his back_ , she thought for a moment, but brushed it off. A dozen justifications rose in her mind every time she thought about stopping or felt guilty. _He never tells you anything. He doesn't trust_ you _enough to let you walk into a crime scene first. His stalker is still out there, and maybe looking at the past will tell me why he's hunting Henry in the present. I have to keep looking so I can figure out what game Adler is playing and beat her at it to keep Henry safe. It's just ancient history, not his present personal life, so it's not even that invasive._

She'd never admit to herself that she was filling a void. Henry, a dear friend who cared about her and who she cared for in return, was largely a mystery to her. He knew everything about her and she knew nothing about him, so this looking for his ancestors made her feel closer to him, like maybe she didn't know him so little, like maybe... she mattered enough to him for him to just tell her the truth instead of her being forced to engage in clandestine research to learn the tiniest thing. She sighed, stood, and stretched. It was time to be very caffeinated and head into work. She was already in her car when she got the call that they had a body. She was ready to finally do some fieldwork rather than beat her head against her desk to the tune of terrible paperwork, but she felt a twinge of disappointment when she knew her little project would be pushed back. She rolled up to the crime scene in dark sunglasses, under eye concealer, and a trenta size coffee from Starbucks. She needed the best and biggest caffeine dose possible, so she treated herself to fancy stuff instead of the usual precinct sludge. She took two long pulls from her drink before she asked the usual question.

"What do we got?" she asked, voice gravelly from lack of sufficient sleep.

Henry sounded less chipper than he typically did at a crime scene. " It's...ugly, Jo," he said carefully.

Jo was incredulous. "Henry, you have literally held out a diseased brain to me in your hands while excitedly telling me exactly what was wrong with it. We have seen people burned, broken, ripped apart, stabbed, and with their their heads bashed in. How can this be bad enough that you of all people don't want me to see it?"

"He's a teenager," Henry hesitated. "And he's been... dismembered. There is rather a lot of blood and the head had been severed... violently."

Jo felt sick. A kid? Darn. It was always worse with kids. And, beheaded? That seemed to be a part that Henry was uncomfortable with. She filed that away for future reference. She guessed even the stoic and scientific Doctor Morgan was allowed to have a few things that disturbed even him. She nodded.

"Okay, you can tell me what you got from the body, then," she agreed to his implied request.

&*&

The case was a long one. It took weeks, and it turned out that the boy's girlfriend was the jealous type, murderously so. She was now getting her head straightened out in a psych ward, if it could be. Henry still flinched sometimes at the very mention of anything involving shrinks. She wished she knew the story behind that, but she wasn't likely to find it in her search of history. Still, she was eager to get back to it. The case had been sad, and gruesome. Her research was intriguing. She spent a long time in the archives the day they finished the paperwork, and she finally, at the bottom of a drawer of old paper files, the original missing persons file sent over by another precinct in case the woman had wandered into their jurisdiction. Despite the fact that the archives were a place for old files, she was surprised that one from thirty years ago wasn't in even more distant storage somewhere in the bottom of a box at the bottom of a stack of boxes. But lucky for her, she supposed. Jo cracked the ancient thing open carefully and an old picture of an even older woman fell out. She examined it. Sylvia would have been beautiful in her younger days, and she still had some of that beauty left in her mischevious eyes and perfectly coiffed hair reminiscent of the forties. Putting the photo aside, she looked at the rest of the file and all the details matched except the name, and her breath caught. She read the line twice, but the words didn't change. _**Abigail Morgan, aged 65, reported missing September 24, 1985 by her husband, Henry Morgan. Officers Blake and Hostler postulate that due to the note left stating her intent to leave and the absence of all personal effects, Mrs. Morgan left of her own volition and does not want to be found.**_

Another Henry Morgan in the last place she'd expected to find him. Jo reeled from the ramifications. This meant Abe had lied about his last name, but he had sounded genuinely in pain when he spoke of his father, so the rest of the story was likely true, especially with the confirmation of the note. Based on the ages, if Abraham's last name was indeed Morgan, then he was probably Henry's father, but Henry had said his father was dead, and she didn't think he'd been using his lying voice... Maybe he was adopted, too? Or Abe's nephew or a more distant relation? She was more determined than ever to diagram the Morgan family tree, so on the way to the library, she went to the craft store and picked up a large pad of paper she could draw the connections on. When she opened the growing Henry File, her scribbled note to look up death records was on top. Because it was as good a place to start as any, she looked up the death records for the Henry Morgans she'd already found, finding more for other Henrys along the way. There were a lot of kinds of causes of death, and never of old age. However, when Jo stopped looking at death records and started looking for marriage records and birth certificates to connect the Henrys to each other through genealogy, she couldn't find any marriage records, and none of the birth records listed a Henry Morgan as the father. It was nearly impossible that with Adler's hint and the odd similarities in career choices, that the Henrys _weren't_ related. But there was no record. Well, then. She'd just have to go on chronology. She ended up returning the big paper and getting another cork board. She had written the names of all the Henrys she found on their own slips of paper, so she used her new cork board, string, and push pins to make more of a family web than a family tree. The only women on it were Abe's mother, her Henry's wives (she assumed that's who Nora was) and the mother of the one she thought of as "first Henry," who had died on the _Empress_. After she had the framework of names up in roughly chronological order from the top down, she placed her creation below her research board and used string and pins to connect the names to any info she had on them. Notably, the women had no such connecting strings, except for Abe's mom to a copy of her photo and Jo's handwritten notes on her case. Jo sought to rectify that in the coming weeks.

It took an entire day of searching to realize she had squat on any of them. She even tried finding Nora by looking into more current records, but even going back far enough for Henry to have been 18 at the time of either marriage, she didn't find any indication he'd ever been married. it had, of course, occurred to her that these records were probably in England, but she had looked there on an international genealogical database, and she still had nothing. There was always the chance that she'd been wrong about Nora being Henry's wife, but he had actually told her that he and Abigail went on their honeymoon on the Orient Express, so she knew they'd been married. Maybe it was a coincidence that it wasn't anywhere she could find, but the more she looked into these Henrys, the more she realized that there was a _lot_ that didn't seem to make it into public record where they were concerned. Jo, looking back over her boards, decided that she liked the look of the few maps and images on the boards. It wasn't about aesthetics as much organizing her thoughts and theories, but the whole thing was meant to be visual, she reasoned. And she needed a break from the monotony of combing through books and newspaper clippings and old documents that turned out to be busts. That was why she determined that she would start looking for any images she could find of the Henry Morgans in her collection of names and dates, as far back as she could find them. She suddenly remembered that Lucas had sent her some photos from the time Henry joined them at the bar after work. She managed to get them from her phone to her computer and printed out her favorite, one of him smiling, with her halfway out of frame next to him, hands just touching on the table. She pinned it next to his name on the family tree board and stepped back to admire her work. Yep, that was the board where she'd put any pictures she managed to find. Looking at the clock, she realized that it was officially morning by a scant seven minutes. It was time for bed.

Due to the late hour, all of the long days and nights she'd given for her project, and the sheer exhaustion of making no progress other than confirming she knew nothing of importance yet, sleep came easily.

Little did Detective Martinez know that she wasn't the only one frustrated by her lack of progress, and that Emily Adler was putting plans in motion to hasten her along to the inevitable, impossible conclusion.

Little did she know that she would abandon her project not too far in the future because she will fear she's losing her mind when Henry is dead and alive again.

Little did she know that when the project came off the backburner with a vengeance, all of the pieces would fall into place with one photograph.

Little did Jo know what fate would befall her and the doctor she stubbornly refused to admit she loved.

-End Chapter 3-

But _you_ know, don't you, dear reader? Or you can guess. Worry not about the cliffhanger. Due to the much larger readers for this project than the _Supernatural_ fic I'm working on, as well as a current lack of inspiration on its part and a runaway train stuffed with it in the case of this story, "When the Past Comes Back to Behead You" will take precedence and will be complete within the month (hopefully). The next chapter, BTW, is from Henry's POV of the same weeks Jo has been living buried in her obsession. Adler is such a dynamic character in my head, so I'll try to give her some more page time, too, but the story is probably going to focus on Jo and Henry's reactions to this interloper and to his secret. And, not to tease, but we're going to get a little background on why Henry reacted poorly to the unfortunate teen in the case I briefly mentioned via flashback. As always, thanks for reading, following, and reviewing. You are all lovely human beings.


	5. Chapter 4: Don't Lose Your Head

Author's Note: In case it's hard to tell, this chapter generally follows the timeline of the previous one, but from Henry's perspective. Also: WARNING! There is a somewhat graphic description of one of Henry's deaths. Blood and stuff. If you want to avoid it, just skip over the first block of Italic text you come to. The gist of it is Henry gets his head cut off and it sucks major lemons. Also, it's a long one! Or at least my longest to date. Yay! That's all!

Chapter 4: The Agony of Waiting (And Also of Dying)

Henry pondered everything Ms. Adler had said during their conversation. Her thinly veiled malice towards Jo was unnerving, to say the least. It would seem that he had underestimated the depth of her fixation on him. He had never intended to make her think that he was romantically inclined towards her, but for someone with his level of observational skills, he had been quite dense in the matter of noticing her attraction to him. He admitted reluctantly to himself that the hope that a cure for his condition could be found through reverse engineering whatever thing made him the way he was had blinded him to everything else. Including Emily. She had been making eyes at him all that time and he had never _seen_ her, never really looked. He supposed, then, that it was at least partially his fault that she was so transfigured from the charming lab assistant he had known a hundred and fifty years ago. Both in respect to her healing and to her singularly focused mind, which was unfortunately focused on him. Could the formula be responsible for her new underlying cruelty? Or merely, as she suggested was the case with Adam, the ravages of time on her heart and mind? He sighed, knowing it was less important that he discern why she was after Jo than it was to protect the detective at all costs. He was so lost in thought that it startled him when his son opened the door to the antique shop, which the doctor had apparently been standing in front of for a number of minutes.

"You okay, Pops?" Abraham asked.

"I'm alright, Abe," his father answered. "I was only thinking. I suppose I got a bit distracted."

"It wasn't about anything good if your face is anything to go by," Abe speculated.

"I need some advice, I think," Henry admitted. He disliked having to admit that his son sometimes knew more than he about certain things.

"Well, business is slow today, so how about I wait fifteen minutes for any new customers to show and then close the shop? You can put the kettle on upstairs while I finish up here," he suggested.

Henry smiled. "Good idea, Abraham. I'll wait in the kitchen for you."

"I'll be up in a minute," he confirmed.

It was indeed only fifteen minutes later that Abe appeared at the top of the steps, slightly winded. It sent a fresh pang of worry through Henry about his son's advanced age. It reminded him that he would one day have to bury his child, as so many things inevitably did these days. He covered up is fretting by calmly gesturing to the tea things he had laid out on the table. Henry didn't pour any for himself, having just consumed tea an hour ago. Abe sat down and fixed his own cup, then looked at Henry.

"Well, start talking. What's up, Dad? How'd it go with this Emily character?" he spoke to the point.

So Henry relayed the conversation to his curious son. Abe frequently made faces at Ms. Adler's odd behavior. When he got to the part about her age comment concerning Abigail, Abe let off a whistle.

"That was below the belt," he said. "Are you sure this woman used to be a nice young girl? You never mentioned her when I was growing up."

"I was ashamed," Henry said. "Guilty. I thought I'd killed her. That isn't information one particularly shares with his children."

Abe nodded. "True enough, but are you sure the craziness is new?"

"Well, she doesn't seem entirely mad..." Henry protested. "But, the lack of empathy and the strong fixation on me to the point of angry outbursts are highly out of character for the young woman I once knew."

"Go on."

So Henry told him what little there was left to tell. Abe was understandably concerned, but he suggested a course of action that Henry was most certainly not in favor of.

"She's after Detective Martinez? Then you have to tell her! She needs to know there's a crazy semi-immortal, theoretically indestructible lady who probably wants to kill her. I've been pushing you for ages to tell her your secret anyway," Abe insisted.

"Abraham," he admonished. "I can't. You _know_ that I can't. If I told her now, she'd only think that I was the crazy one, or worse, believe me and choose to leave this insanity behind. If she doesn't trust me, then I won't be able to protect her."

"You know very well that Jo is a capable woman who can take care of herself. It's one of the things you like about her. But to defend herself, she needs all the facts. Dad, you have to _give_ her those facts," he insisted.

"I need her to trust me, Abe. How can she once she realizes all of the things I've hidden, all the things I've lied about?" Henry asked.

"For good reason," Abe said stubbornly. "Besides, don't you trust _her_?"

"Of course I do," Henry said. "Besides you, she's my dearest friend. She has risked her life for me more times than I can count, even though it isn't strictly necessary. I trust Jo."

"Then that should be enough," Abe replied. "Even if you lose her trust by telling the truth, and I don't think you will, you at least know she'd never betray you, right? And besides, wouldn't it be better if she knew so she wouldn't try to put your life ahead of hers when you know you'd be fine after taking a bullet to the gut?"

Abe was being entirely reasonable, but Henry wasn't feeling very reasonable. He had wanted his son to tell him how to keep Jo safe, not risk losing her altogether. Adler had seemed to intend her remark as a warning rather than a threat, so he would only tell Jo the unspeakable truth if it was absolutely, unavoidably necessary.

"I will tell her someday, Abraham, but now is not the time. I need to make her safe, not make her hate me," Henry told him.

His son sighed deeply. "I can't make you do anything you stubbornly refuse to do even when it's for your own good, but just remember that everybody can't afford the same luxury of 'someday' that you can, Pops."

"I understand, Abe," he said.

"Good. Now help me with dinner, will you? It's supposed to be your turn to cook," Abe thankfully changed the subject.

Henry smiled appreciatively. "I'm coming. How does tandoori chicken sound?"

Dinner and evening passed normally into bedtime. The odd pair bid each other goodnight, and retired to their respective rooms. However, Henry couldn't fall asleep for the longest time, thoughts swirling in his head like snowflakes caught in a blizzard wind. He worried about Adler and what her presence meant for Jo's safety. Sleep came reluctantly and fitfully like an ill-tempered child. His dreams were haunted by Jo's guarded face and the kind of terror he'd felt not knowing if she'd survived his suggestion to crash into the barricade with a murderer in the passenger seat.

Over the next few days, work was slow. The cases that came across the detective's desk were few and far between, and the ones they did work turned out to be relatively simple and tied up with a neat bow (as much as any crime could be). He noticed Jo glancing at him more frequently through the corners of her eyes. She seemed nervous and preoccupied. He wondered if Ms. Adler was the cause. Could she be following Jo, putting her on edge? Had she threatened her directly? Henry didn't want to ask her in case the answer was along the lines of: 'No, why? Did she threaten _you_? Tell me everything.' He was afraid of revealing too much to her because Ms. Adler had been right when she said Jo was clever. It really wouldn't take much for her to puzzle out everything, which was why he'd been so careful to let nothing slip that would give anything away. When work picked up for a couple of days, she seemed even more agitated than she had been. Granted, she was fairly subtle, incredibly adept at masking her feelings, but Henry had had a lot of practice seeing what other people didn't want him to out of an interest of learning how to better conceal his own secrets. He mentioned her tension to Abe and asked his advice. He recommended food as a cure for all ills. He got that from his mother. So, Henry decided to invite her to dinner at their flat, as he had many times before. She always seemed to like coming. Perhaps that would help soothe her nerves a tad, and besides, he would be glad of her company.

Asking Jo to come to dinner was more difficult than he had anticipated it being. If he wasn't fairly certain that he had done nothing to warrant Jo's agitation, he would have said she was avoiding him. As it was, he finally caught up to her in a back hallway of the precinct. He called her name a few times before she heard him. She turned around, a hurried smile on her face, leaning against the wall and looking a little flustered. He noticed he was smiling at her inadvertent antics and tried to tone down the wattage of his grin by talking to her.

"Jo," he began, nervously. Why was he nervous? He'd invited her to dinner scores of times before. Now should be no different from then. "Do you have dinner plans? Abe is making lasagna, and he always makes enough for more than two people. Would you like to come over?" he asked in a cheerful rush.

His anxiety of the past week evaporated for a moment when she smiled and said, "Of course, Henry. You know Abe's meals are way better than anything I can microwave at home."

"That is an understatement, detective," Henry said jokingly.

She punched him gently in the shoulder. He rubbed it and pretended to be offended. "Hey!" she protested.

Henry raised his hands placatingly. "That was a comment on the microwave's proficiency at fixing food, not yours," he apologized.

"What is your issue with microwaves, or cell phones, or any modern technology for that matter?" Jo asked him with a touch of exasperation.

"It's not that I don't understand their usefulness or their appeal, but in my opinion, microwaves ruin food. As for everything else, when I attempt to use technology of most kinds, my skill with it is typically found... somewhat lacking," he explained, remembering with amusement and embarrassment a particular incident involving the microwave and a foil-wrapped stick of butter he'd been attempting to soften in the new appliance instead of a reliable saucepan at Abraham's behest. The results had been... alarming, both literally and figuratively because the commotion had set off the smoke detector and one of the neighbors had called the fire department. The whole thing had been something of a debacle. Jo guessed correctly the reason for his aversion to microwaves in one go.

"You put metal in one and blew it up, didn't you?" she teased him.

Henry said nothing, but he knew that the embarrassed flush in his cheeks gave him away.

Dinner with Jo was pleasant as always. Abraham had made his mother's lasagna recipe and sharing the meal with Jo felt somehow right. She had become nearly as much a part of their lives as Abigail had been before she left. Abe told a story about one of his college girlfriends, which made Henry scold him and Jo laugh. God, he loved to hear that sound. They finished all too soon, and because Jo and Abe seemed to be enjoying each others' company, he volunteered to wash the dishes. He caught glimpses of them talking through the screen door. Because of the way they were sitting, he could only see Jo's face. She seemed to be listening intently to a story of Abe's, clearly of the more serious variety than the one before. He couldn't hear them from this distance, but despite the implications of eavesdropping, he wished he could hear what they were saying that could make the detective's face look so sad, as it did when he looked next. By the time he completed the chore and returned to the table, Jo was complimenting Abe on the lasagna and they seemed to have finished their discourse. He thought he detected a lingering atmosphere of tension and sadness, but conversation resumed normally to include him again, and the odd expressions on Jo's face during the time he'd been inside were nearly forgotten amidst the laughter and talking. That is, until Jo left and Abe told him what the two of them had been discussing.

"She asked you what?" Henry was incredulous.

"My last name, first of all. Which, to be honest, probably should have been something we thought of how to answer a long time ago," his son pointed out. "And, secondly, she wanted to know what you were doing at the time of Abigail's disappearance, but of course, she asked about 'my father,' not you by name, though. She never asked what my father's first name was, thank goodness. I don't know if I could have come up with anything convincing enough on the spot. As it is, I choked on my drink when she asked me a simple question like what my last name is and I think I hesitated before lying and telling her that it was Blake. Jo probably already knows something's up. She's a Detective for God's sake."

"Calm down, Abe. We don't know that she knows anything yet, and what could she possibly find out? We tracked down as many records of my past selves and hid or destroyed them, especially pictures. At most, if she can find Abigail's original missing persons case, she can find out that her name was not, in fact Sylvia Blake, which I suppose would be bad enough, since she knows that my wife's name was Abigail... Never mind, you're right Abraham. We're doomed," he lamented.

"Now, Dad," Abe cautioned. "You're right about not underestimating Detective Martinez, but as I have mentioned on numerous occasions, it would not be the end of the world if she did find something out. And let's admit that the truth isn't something she'd be likely to guess at on her own. It's pretty wild to me still sometimes, and I'm the one who fishes you out of the river all the time."

"Alright, we won't run off to Belgium or anything- yet. But I think I should keep an eye on her just in case. Remember that Emily Adler did vaguely threaten to drop her a hint about my past. And even though I'm aware that I sound like a massive hypocrite, I would rather she found out from me than anywhere else. I don't want her to find out at all, but if she has to, I want to be the one to tell her," Henry said.

Abe rolled his eyes at his ridiculous father. "Then tell her before she finds out herself. She's going to be more upset about your secret keeping than about your actual secret, you know that, right? Tell her before Adler tells her for you, before the choice is taken from your hands entirely."

"Not yet, Abe. It wouldn't be the end of the world if Jo knew my secret, yes. But it would be the end of me if she walked away and never came back as I fear she would. She's... a good friend, and I'd hate to lose that," he admitted.

"Hey," Abe soothed, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Jo doesn't seem like the type of dame to do that, unlike some ex-wives of mine I could mention. She's tough. You think a little thing like this is gonna unravel her?"

"No..." Henry sighed begrudgingly, admitting to himself and Abe that Jo was more strong and capable than either of them probably knew.

"Then there's nothing to worry about," Abe said as though the matter were settled. "I'll indulge you about your little spying initiative, but I still think it's a better idea to just come clean."

"Noted," Henry said brusquely. "I'll be in the lab for awhile. Something Emily said about the formula got me thinking, and I'd like to test something."

"It doesn't involve me having to come pick you up from the river does it?" Abe asked warily.

"No," he said with amusement.

"Then you may proceed," Abe said, and went to the living room to read the paper.

A couple of hours later, he sighed in defeat. His cells displayed no higher than normal regenerative levels under the microscope. He wished he had a sample from Ms. Adler to compare, but as it was, her regenerative capability did not stem from his blood in any way he could discern at present. He didn't really know what he was doing, looking at his own blood samples for the fiftieth time. Maybe he was only trying to distract himself from his fears about Jo. If he really thought about it, he'd have to admit that he cared much more about her safety than keeping her friendship, as much as it might hurt to lose her. That was why he was going to watch her and not, as he'd hinted to Abe, because he was worried about what she might find out about, though that was still a concern. He didn't want to let on to his son how much Ms. Adler's poorly concealed hatred for Jo scared him. Abe was rather fond of the detective, like a father or an uncle. If he knew that Henry was worried about her being in real and immediate danger, then he'd insist on doing something reckless like when he'd guarded the flintlock pistol from Adam by sitting in front of the safe with a shotgun. And seeing as Jo was infinitely more important to both of them than the weapon, his son's reaction would likely be even more extreme. No, Henry would keep yet another secret. The weight of them was getting harder and harder to feel as they accumulated and he became accustomed to it. He vowed though that he would never become so uncaring, so blase about life as Adam. Not ever. His dreams were once again haunted by Jo's disapproving face, with the horrifying addition of Emily plunging into the icy waters of the Thames with him helpless to save her again. Guilt would not let him alone, even in sleep. Such was an even greater curse of being an immortal than having to renew one's driver's license every seven years: the lack of relief from guilt and grief, for years and years. No end. No reprieve. No rest.

If Henry had been hoping for a break from bad memories and painful thoughts at work, he was thoroughly disappointed. He was called to the scene of a crime early in the morning, and he arrived swiftly for using public transportation, but his hopes of a distraction from the unpleasant past were dashed upon seeing the headless body of a teenaged boy lying in a large pool of blood. The head was a few feet away, face up, eyes gray and empty, forever staring at the bleak New York sky, features twisted in a grimace of shock and pain. Bending down to examine the poor boy closer, he was suddenly swept away on a tide of memory:

 _The wood was rough and cool beneath his chin. He could see nothing from beneath the scratchy blindfold. All was dark, but he could hear the jeers and dull roar of the small crowd of people in front of him. Or perhaps that was the rush of blood in his ears, for he was very afraid. Not of death, of course, but of the inevitable pain. Speaking of pain, the rocks on the ground bit into the skin of his knees through the fabric of his plain rough-hewn brown cotton trousers. It had been a mistake to visit rural France during this period of unrest. His face ached from the bailiff's beating. His swollen nose was surely broken, but it would not remain that way for long. Usually, the wheels in his head would be turning towards a solution to the problem of 'What to do when I reappear?' by now, but all he could think was that he was terribly afraid. He had never been beheaded before. It was undoubtedly going to be highly unpleasant. He heard the local hangman heft his axe, and it seemed an eternity before its blade bit into the back of his neck. When it did, it was an explosion of fire and agony that crescendoed and then throbbed. He had expected it to be quick, one blow. It wasn't. Breath gurgled painfully around the massive outpouring of blood in his mangled throat, which was halfway open to the elements. His previous deaths had been painful, sure. He had been literally tortured before. But it was nothing compared to the horror, the blinding confusion and pain of this. It took the hangman three, four tries to fully sever his head. Even still, he felt his eyes rove back and forth in his head, knew his mouth was open in a silent scream, for several moments before the blessed light engulfed him and he was gone at last. He surfaced in a nearby pond, gasping for breath, clawing desperately at his neck to make sure his head was still attached._

Henry shook himself back to the present. He realized he was rubbing at his neck under his scarf and stopped. Dwelling on the past now would do him no good, nor would it get justice for the young victim. He examined the boy and found that his decapitation was mercifully more swift than Henry's had been. It had been one blow by a very sharp blade. It was very low on the neck, and the vector was odd, as though his assailant had been of below average stature. Whoever had done this had clearly not been lacking in strength, though. His other limbs were severed with the same weapon, but had been removed more roughly, almost savagely. He ascertained what other clues he could from the body: left hand callouses indicative of a guitar player, blood spatter and volume indicated that he had been killed here, defined arm and abdominal muscles indicative of a swimmer, droplets of whiskey on his shirt, but no physical evidence to indicate he'd been drinking, so from the killer perhaps, a smudged boot print in the blood, too small to be from the victim, maybe from the short murderer. His observation took all of ten minutes, including the time he'd been lost in memory. He ordered the body bagged and the remaining evidence photographed and collected. He rose to his feet and spotted Detective Martinez step from her vehicle and cross the street to his position behind the crime scene tape with the other officers. As she drew nearer, he observed that she was wearing dark sunglasses, though it was early in the morning. And her coffee cup was bigger than usual. She moved slowly, almost reluctantly. She didn't seem hungover, but she did look exhausted. She hadn't stayed that late at his flat. What had she been up to in the hours since he had seen her last? She took two big sips of her drink as though it was life-giving fuel.

"What do we got?" she asked in a practiced tone, voice rough and tired.

"It's...ugly, Jo," he told her slowly.

Jo was understandably disbelieving. "Henry, you have literally held out a diseased brain to me in your hands while excitedly telling me exactly what was wrong with it. We have seen people burned, broken, ripped apart, stabbed, and with their their heads bashed in. How can this be bad enough that you of all people don't want me to see it?"

"He's a teenager," Henry explained, then hesitated. The young man reminded him uncomfortably of Abraham at that age, with dark hair and a defined nose. He continued, with some difficulty, "And he's been... dismembered. There is rather a lot of blood and the head had been severed... violently."

Jo paused, looking green for a moment, then examining Henry for several more. She nodded in answer to some internal question and replied in the way he'd hoped she would, for her sake.

"Okay, you can tell me what you got from the body, then," she requested.

So he did

The case was strangely complicated, considering the killer was inexperienced and had performed the crime in a fit of passion. Most of the three weeks they spent chasing leads were consumed by tracking down the identity of the boy. Apparently, his parents had kicked him out of the house for repeatedly disobeying them in respect to post-high school plans and activities. The boy was eighteen, so what they had done was perfectly legal, and they hadn't known anything was wrong enough to report him missing. The idea that he was dead never occurred to them even when it was reported that a teenage boy matching his description had been murdered. The media disgusted Henry when they dug their vulture-like talons into the story of a 'sensational' death, not because they cared about the victim, but because they knew the horror and novelty of it would draw in viewers. Anyway, they had found out his name eventually through a local high school swim team, and then it had been fairly simple to figure out who had killed him. The suspect, the victim's girlfriend, was arrested without incident and admitted to the whole thing when Henry pretended to sympathize with why she'd murdered the victim to stir up righteous indignation and perhaps entice her to rant about the unforgivable actions of her late boyfriend or brag about how she had dispensed 'justice.' The tactic had worked and she confessed everything in the form of justifying her actions. The young woman was now at a psychiatric facility upstate receiving treatment for her violent impulses. Hanson had delivered the news of the outcome of her trial (which had been mercifully short as she had plead guilty) with disappointment that she had gotten off light. Henry felt uneasy about her sentence for another reason altogether. His previous wariness of psychiatrists due to his time in Charing Cross combined with the sense of betrayal when the therapist he had begun to trust, Dr. Farber, had turned out to be the psychopathic immortal who had been stalking him, made him continue to tense or flinch slightly when the topic of insanity or asylums was brought up. He had done it when Hanson spoke, which had earned him a suspicious glance from Jo. he felt certain that she knew something, but what precisely, he wasn't sure. He only knew he needed to speak to her, if at least to ask her if she was alright. She had seemed to calm down a bit when the case was solved, but for the next four days, she began to look increasingly frazzled and perpetually frustrated.

He would have talked to her sooner, but it took so long to catch a private moment with her. Finally, he worked up the nerve to go over to her house on that fourth evening, knocking on the door insistently. He heard a series of thumps and some rustling, but the detective came to the door promptly. He heard her check the peephole, then slide back the locks to crack the door open. She only opened it enough to step halfway onto the porch, her body wedged into the doorframe as though blocking his entry. He frowned a moment at that, but smiled at her when he noticed her frowning back. Even with her hair a wreck and sweatpants and a rumpled police T-shirt on, she was beautiful. He reprimanded himself internally for thinking that way about her. Because of his curse, any relationship they could cobble together would have no chance of lasting. He had seen that with Abigail. He cleared his throat before breaking the brief silence.

"Hello, Detective," he greeted her.

Her mouth quirked to the side. "You only call me 'Detective' when you're lecturing, in front of the lieutenant, or feeling awkward. My money's on the last thing. What's up?" she asked astutely.

"I feel like a fool for bothering you so late at night, but I'm worried about you. You haven't been acting like yourself lately," Henry began. "Is there something bothering you, or... someone?"

"If you mean your jealous ex-not-girlfriend, then, no. I haven't seen her since the day she waltzed into the morgue and made you faint," she replied reasonably.

"Oh, good," Henry affirmed awkwardly. At least Ms. Adler was not bothering the detective directly. But that did make him worry about what she might be doing instead. She'd never been one to sit idle when there was a problem, and if one thing was abundantly clear, it was that she saw Jo as a problem. "But something is obviously still on your mind," he continued. "Would you care to tell me what it is? Maybe I can help."

Jo snorted softly at some private joke. He wondered what was funny. "You're sweet, Henry, but honestly, I'm fine. I'm just a little stressed about this... research project I've been working on. I'm hitting a lot of dead ends."

"What sort of research? Is it about a case?" he inquired.

"No..." she said hesitantly. "It's just about... family history, but I can't seem to dig up the records I want to find. A lot of them are pretty old and have gone missing from the library. I've checked book after book, database after database, but turned up nothing."

Henry knew a thing or two about being frustrated by lack of information, but also about finding hidden information. After all, he'd been responsible for hiding or destroying a lot of information about himself.

"Have you tried microfilm or microfiche? It would be very hard for those records to get lost... or stolen. Many old documents from birth certificates to newspapers are stored on there. Those sources would probably yield you better luck than combing through old books with tiny print," he suggested.

"Thanks, Henry," she said with a grateful smile. "That's really helpful, actually. I haven't tried those yet. I bet the guy at the desk can help me figure out how to use them. Um, by the way, what would be the best place to look for deaths or marriages in other countries from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries?"

Henry pondered a moment. "Besides the official certificates, probably newspapers if you know what town your relatives were from."

"Not for all of them, but I can probably find out for the rest and then check local papers around the right time. Speaking of ancestors, where is the Morgan family from originally? I could guess England, but where in England, specifically? My own research has got me curious," Jo responded.

Henry smiled. It was a question about his past he could answer for her, and that was nice and somewhat rare. "As far back as the mid-eighteenth century, I know we lived in London, at least, on the outskirts in a proper house rather than apartments. Before that, I'm not sure. Probably still London," he replied.

"Wow, you actually gave me a straight answer about personal information. Should I alert the press? After all, this is a rare occurrence," she teased him.

"I'd prefer you didn't," he said lightheartedly. "As you may have noticed, my name in the papers seems to attract unstable previously dead people. Let's not do that again."

Jo shifted her weight uncomfortably. "So tea the other day went that badly, then? I didn't know if I should ask or not," she admitted.

"Well, it went about as well as I expected it would," Henry said, shaking his head. "She was too focused on the research, to the point of being unhealthy, towards the end. But I never knew she felt that way about me until she said it outright. I saw her as a pupil or maybe a younger sister. The age difference isn't enormous, but it was enough to make me uncomfortable with her advances that day. But even then, she didn't seem nearly so..." he trailed off, not sure what word he was looking for.

"Obsessed with you? Unhinged? Full of the kind of egotism that requires her to make a dramatic entrance?" she suggested. Hmm. It seemed the dislike between the two women was mutual.

Henry blushed and cleared his throat again. "She's not crazy, but your assessment is not... entirely inaccurate," he admitted reluctantly.

Jo laughed once. "Always the gentleman. So she wasn't always this over-the-top?" she asked, leaning more casually on the doorframe.

"No," he answered. "Once, she was, well, she was brilliant. She wasn't even a legal adult and she cracked molecular chemistry like an eggshell. She was driven, sure, but never this... single-minded. I think the time in hiding combined with the fact she seems to still not know the difference between love and infatuation has gotten to her. She used to be so much more considerate of others. Her sense of humor was sharp, but she was never deliberately offensive or cruel. I wish I knew what to do."

"You're the smartest man I know," Jo told him. "You've solved cases in days that would have taken us weeks or months or might never have been solved at all. Sure, sometimes I don't approve of your methods, especially the more reckless ones, but you get the job done. You'll solve this problem, I know it."

Henry was warmed by her sincere praise. "Thank you, Jo. It's getting quite late, though. I think I need to go home. Abraham will be wondering where I am," he mentioned.

"Okay," Jo said in return. "See you at work. Goodnight."

"Goodnight Jo," he said and turned away to go down her steps and walk off into the night.

If he had only turned around, he would have seen Jo standing on her porch watching him with a guilty look plastered across her face. She felt bad for indirectly lying to Henry to get him to tell her where 'first Henry' came from and how to find more information on him, but it was necessary, she told herself. She had to know more. "I'm sorry, Henry," she whispered into the darkness.

Henry, meanwhile, was caught up in another memory as he strolled down the shadowy street.

 _He jumped a foot into the air as he heard a voice behind him, very close, ask: 'What have you found, Doctor Morgan?'_

 _He flinched so violently that he almost fell off his chair, hands flying to his throat. He looked up and saw his lovely young assistant, Emily, standing at his shoulder with a curious look on her face._

' _Why do you always do that?' she asked him._

' _Do what?' he asked innocently, hoping she would drop the subject. No such luck._

' _Cover your neck whenever you're surprised or startled or nervous. I've noticed you doing it a lot.' she replied._

 _He sighed. Sometimes he adored the girl's curious nature, but at this particular time, he wished she had less of it. She already knew his greatest secret, thanks to an unfortunate mishap, so he saw little harm in telling her this one thing._

' _I was beheaded once,' he told her, knowing she wouldn't be repulsed by any description. She had a much stronger countenance than most young ladies and her hands were much steadier during the dissection of lab animals than his previous lab assistant, who had been male. 'It was highly unpleasant, to say the least. It very rarely happens in one stroke, you know. It was traumatic and I suppose that because of it, whenever I feel any sort of fear, from surprise to worry, my first instinct is to protect my neck.'_

 _She pondered this for a moment. 'Understandable. You poor man. I think I have an idea that may help, though.'_

 _He was skeptical, but he thought it was worth it it to hear her out. 'What is that?'_

' _Based upon my studies in psychology, it is human instinct to be comforted by touch, like a child feels more secure in a dark bedroom when he is under the covers. I have a theory that if you kept some sort of fabric barrier around your neck at all times, then you would subconsciously feel safer in respect to your head remaining attached.' she said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world._

 _He felt slightly offended by the indirect analogy of him to a frightened child, but he considered her suggestion. 'What sort of fabric barrier did you have in mind?'_

 _She smiled devilishly as she whipped out a green scarf and tied it around his neck with a flourish._

' _A scarf,' she answered. 'You can get more scarves later, if this works, but I took the liberty of purchasing one to start you off.'_

' _You were waiting to give me that,' he observed._

' _Very astute of you, Doctor Morgan,' she said warmly. 'I thought of this ages ago, not long after I noticed the habit of reaching for your throat. I wanted to help.'_

' _You have,' he said, adjusting the fabric at his collarbone, immediately liking the feel of it wrapped comfortingly around his neck. 'You're too kind, Emily. And please, call me Henry.'_

' _Henry,' she said his name with the utmost affection, smiling warmly._

He blinked out of the memory on the corner before Abe's store. At least he hadn't been preoccupied staring vacantly at the door for an unknown period of time like last time. He continued towards his home of the past five years. And another night of fretful dreaming.

Jo was this time surrounded by portraits of him in his various other lives, from before his first death to his WWII uniform to his suits of the seventies and eighties to his current typical attire of a suit and a labcoat. They loomed over her, whispering the incriminating truth he himself could not bear to tell her. He begged them to stop, but to no avail. Jo's face closed off and she looked at him with apprehension and disgust.

The dream shifted to the memory he'd recalled earlier, but distorted by the new information and impressions he had of Emily. Her smile was no longer innocent but too wide and full of ill-intent. She purred in a distorted voice, some amalgamation of past and present, " _I'm the only one who could ever love you. We monsters have to stick together."_

" _I'm no monster,"_ dream Henry insisted _. "And I don't think you are either, no matter how you've changed."_

" _That's where you're wrong, Henry darling. We are indeed monstrous simply by virtue of our abnormal, perverse nature. There is no escaping what you are, not even in death..."_ she trailed off to laugh at his naivety, then raised a familiar chipped executioner's axe.

He woke gasping for breath, clutching his throat, at 3:00 AM. Sleep was pointless at this hour and in his agitated state, so he decided to read and drink a cup of calming tea. Despite his assumptions at the futility of rest, his body clearly needed it because he fell into a dreamless sleep slouched in his chair by chapter two.

It was good that he had caught some sleep because he was woken by a call to the store around 7:00 in the morning. Jo's voice was on the other end of the line.

"We've got a body," she said in her usual tone.

"Give me twenty minutes," he replied, then hung up and got dressed.

He walked with purpose from the subway stop to the not-too distant crime scene. It was at a cab company that reminded him unpleasantly of what Adam had done to him and the man that the insane immortal had killed for his taxi. Henry looked around, scoping the surrounding area for clues before he examined the actual crime scene in detail. He didn't see anything of consequence, so he proceeded to the caution tape. The CSI people were already packing up. He must have taken longer than he thought he would getting here or examining the area leading up to the crime scene. The uniformed officers were leaving, too, taking down the caution tape. What? This was undeniably strange. Jo was standing next to an open taxi with a worried frown on her face. Hanson said goodbye to her, then walked past Henry, tossing out an explanation on his way back to the precinct.

"Prank call. Said there was a dead body in that cab, specifically, but there's nothing. We checked the other cabs to be sure, but nothing. Now everybody's mad about wasted time, and we're gonna track down who made that call and make sure they don't do it again," he explained in a heated rush, already climbing into his car.

Henry reached Jo as Hanson drove away. She smiled apologetically at him.

"Hey, I would've called you and told you not to bother coming, but A: you don't have a cell phone, and B: I found this," she said, pulling out a small blacklight like the crime scene techs used. Had she pocketed it from the equipment? Why?

She walked around to the driver's side backseat and leaned in to shine it on the backs of the front seats. In the growing daylight, it was hard to make out, but spelled out in hand-painted glowing blue letters was: **I'M STILL HERE, HENRY**. Well, that answered his question. Henry felt a thrill of cold pass down his spine. Great. Not only was Ms. Adler plotting something, but Adam was bored and ready to play another twisted game. Just his luck.

"I saw the first letters of your name when CSI was sweeping, but I decided not to say anything because the police think your old stalker's dead. It would be weird for you to have more than one, and I know you like to stay out of the spotlight," Jo said uncomfortably.

Henry paused his examination of the words and his brooding thoughts, shocked to his core.

"You hid this information from the police... for me? And how did you know that Clark Walker wasn't the real Adam?" he asked, incredulous.

"I saw you, that day at the shop, when the police were leaving. Your face during that phone call was one you'd made a lot when you got a call not from Abe both before and after Walker was caught and you said that your stalker called you when he wanted to talk. I didn't really put it together until just now," she explained. He made to reply somehow, with gratitude, but her hand holding the light dipped slightly and he froze. He had seen, for just a second, another line of glowing blue characters.

"Jo, there are more words," he choked out.

She shined the light more directly on the line below the first. This time the writing was smaller and more delicate, as if written by another person altogether. **PS: Henry, you're the dead body.**

Henry had no time to register this, because upon reading the last word, a shot rang out, and pain hit him between the shoulder blades, and then in his heart as a bullet from an unseen sniper pierced him. He cried out and fell to the pavement. Blood gushed from the wound in his chest.

"Henry!" Jo shouted in alarm. she dropped the black light, still on, into the floor of the taxi, running to him.

She fell to her knees beside his head. She pulled it into her lap and tried to put pressure on the wound. "Stay with me, Henry. I'll call for help," she pleaded, voice cracking with emotion. But she couldn't take out her phone and keep enough pressure on his chest, right over the scar she'd seen that time they rescued him from being tortured. She swore, feeling helpless.

"It's alright, Jo," Henry reassured her in a croaking voice. "I'll be fine. Call... Abraham. Tell- tell him to pick me up in the usual place. I'll... explain... everything... when I get back."

"Back from where? You're not making any sense!" she shouted at him.

"Call Abe," he insisted. "Jo, I-"

But he didn't get the chance to finish his sentence because he vanished in a flash of light and memory, leaving a bewildered Detective Martinez kneeling in a parking lot where a pool of blood and her partner had once been.

Miles away, Henry emerged, gasping from the water of the river, hoping to God that Jo would call Abraham and that she would understand all that he had kept from her, and maybe, forgive him.

Miss Emily Adler, much closer to Jo on a nearby rooftop, resisted the temptation to shoot a second time, this time aiming for Detective Martinez, not fatally, just somewhere it would hurt. She reminded herself that being hurt would turn the detective into a victim, a martyr, in Henry's eyes, and that would run counter to her purposes of breaking them apart. She needed him to believe that the policewoman would never care for him the way _she_ did, and wanting to protect or forgive her due to her injury or loss would not accomplish that. So she lowered the rifle with a sigh. She would get back at the detective with a considerably greater degree of... subtlety. Emily smiled in a way that would have been terrifying to observers, had there been any, at all of the possibilities for vengeance roaming through her head.

-End Chapter 4-

A/N: Still sorry I haven't figured out the great secret to visible line breaks on Fanfiction. Thanks for reading anyway!


	6. Chapter 5: The Truth Hurts

Author's Note: **Passerby** , thank you for pointing out the thing about the hangman being the one that kills by hanging. I always appreciate feedback that points out my mistakes so I can endeavor to fix them. However, the use of the word was actually intentional. When I was looking up how long France was still beheading people (until 1970, apparently), I found out that the reason that so many beheadings were botched and took a few tries is that they just grabbed the usual executioner, the hangman, and told him he was chopping the head off instead of breaking the neck this time. My source that I don't remember, possibly Wikipedia, could be wrong, but I just wanted to explain my historical goof-up might not have been incorrect. All the same, I appreciate you helping me keep my stories accurate, and if you or anybody else sees something that looks off, please feel free to tell me. Hugs, a grateful writer.

Chapter 5: It's About Time the Main Antagonist Got a Chance to Explain Herself

She had adored Adam's suggestion of the isolated cab company and it was only luck that the owner was out of town. She didn't mind that Adam had wanted to remind Henry that he was still around, but she couldn't resist adding her own message. She remembered with a smug smile the utter confusion and terror on the detective's face when Henry vanished. Priceless. It would be hypocritical to use this to insult the detective's inner strength or general intelligence, though, as she had likely made a similar expression the first time she saw Henry die. She shook her head to fight off the memory. A story to be recalled another time. Now, she had work to do. As she collapsed her rifle and placed it in her purse, she thought about what to do next. Perhaps she could hurry along the detective's research with a carefully placed clue. One thing was for sure: she couldn't let Henry tell Martinez the truth. She had to figure it out for herself and the lies on both their parts would seal the end of their relationship due to broken trust on both sides. She wondered what Henry would think upon seeing her note and the clothes she had left for him. It was a concise threat that went straight to the point. _Tell her the truth and she dies._ Emily had wanted to add 'slowly' but that would have come off as just a tad too sadistic, and Henry, bless him, just wasn't ready to admit that the transient people who aged and died were beneath their notice. Henry did, however, still have some of his wits about him, apparently. Enough to destroy as many records of himself as possible. It had been a devil of a time trying to track down anything. She had needed to employ some slightly... unsavory methods to scrounge up even the scant information she had. How could she nudge that infernal woman to the truth most efficiently? What would be the most condemning piece of evidence? A photograph, surely, of him in the wrong time period. One of him with young Abraham or Abigail, ideally. But one from another century would serve if she could only find one. Her Henry was clever; he had gotten rid of copies of himself in every country he'd lived in. But his only fault was his sentimentality. He would have kept some photos of himself and his family at home. And he and Abe were about to be very conveniently out of the house at the same time. She made haste for the train that would take her to the antique shop.

She browsed the front window of a clothing store across the street until she heard the door jingle at Abraham's departure. When his car pulled away, she crossed to the antique store, and pretending to have trouble with her key, picked the lock and stepped inside the darkened store, locking the door behind her. No need to let would-be customers follow her in. She browsed through more personal boxes behind the counter, and in the back, finding plenty of interesting information, but no pictures. She moved on to the upstairs quarters. She found a drawer of passports with Henry's picture on them from several countries under different names. Confound him, why couldn't he use false names in other areas? She understood a fondness for one's given name, but that bloody sentimental attachment to it would get him caught. Honestly, sometimes it was like he was trying to get discovered. She made her way to his bedroom. She knew it instantly from the rack of scarves hanging from the closet door. She hadn't said so, but it really warmed her to her core that he had still kept up the old habit she'd introduced him to all those decades ago to help him with his anxiety. She spotted a length of green fabric on the top right rung of the ladder-like structure that sagged from the weight of all that material. She reached out and pulled the end of the scarf to her, beaming. Her eyes pricked with happy tears. He'd kept it. It was undoubtedly the same scarf she'd given him, the first in his collection. The material was old, naturally, a bit worn and faded, but in good condition for its age, obviously well cared-for. So he hadn't forgotten her after all. She let the fabric drop back into its place, then indulged herself in breathing in the scent of him from the mass of fabric before her. It was thick in her throat, the subtle spice of his cologne and the faint tang of antiseptic from the morgue which should have been unpleasant together, but were just so _Henry_ that a little sigh of pleasure escaped her. The sound of it breaking the silence of the bedroom startled her back into action. At last, in a box at the back of his closet, she found them. A shot of him and Abigail in her fifties with a younger Abe in the foreground, obviously trying to simultaneously be the photographer and the subject of the photo. She felt a pang at how happy he had looked while gazing at the woman in front of him with such love. That harpy had deserved to die at Adam's hands for leaving him like that. What vile kind of person would one have to be to leave behind such a caring family as Emily never had? Even if she had been mortal, she would have stayed by Henry's side as long as he would have her, people's opinions and objections be darned. She realized that perhaps, by anyone's standards, she was no longer a good person. She had killed, and lied, and a host of other unspeakable things. Perhaps she didn't deserve Henry, for despite everything he'd ever been through, he was still, undeniably, a good man. Maybe the best. Then her temporary weakness was eradicated as logic came back to her. The standards of mortals did not apply to her. She had done what was necessary. And whether or not she was good enough for Henry, she was the only thing he had that would last, and she had all the time in the world to change if she must. She examined the other photograph in her hand. It was a black and white shot of Henry Morgan and the other members of his regiment in the Great War, or World War I, as ignorant people had christened it. There had been many international and even a couple of inter-continental wars before the early twentieth century. It aggrieved her to no end that people continually ignored history. How were you supposed to learn from your mistakes if you never admitted you made any? Just look at her. When she had slipped up in 1902 Berlin by using her real name when she was wanted for murder and had to escape from prison by killing herself with a shank made of tightly wrapped cookbook cardstock pages, she had learned to always use false names until she was ready to see Henry again. She had no real attachment to her old name, but Emily had wanted him to know her by the name they met under.

She tucked the pictures into her purse and prepared to leave. Suddenly, a car door slammed outside. She parted the curtains gently and peeked out at the street. That awful woman was climbing from her car and approaching the door to the shop. She reached behind a brick around the window frame and withdrew a key. Emily swore colorfully. She dashed for the veranda, pausing only to prop the passport drawer open for the detective to hopefully find (more evidence that Henry was hiding something). Silently, she cracked open the sliding door. There was no way to lock it from the outside, so she had to hope the Morgans would simply think they'd forgotten to latch it. She was out and over the balcony onto the next roof in a flash. She landed to the tune of cracking bones, but she was an old pro at pain, so she didn't make a sound other than the thudding of her body onto the roof. She rolled to a sitting position and examined the damage. Some minor scrapes on her arms were already closing, the blood fading back into her skin. She felt spasms of pain in her legs where the bones were trying to grind back together in the wrong positions. She wrenched the bones back into place and adjusted her shattered ankles to the proper alignment. She sat, breathing heavily for about a minute and a half while her muscles and skin knitted themselves back together around the healed breaks. All she had to do was pop her left shoulder back into its socket and soon there was nothing left of her injuries but smooth, unblemished skin. She pulled out a mirror and checked her face. She had protected it with her arms, but it was possible that she had still sustained some damage. A gash on her left temple vanished as she was looking at it, but other than that, her features were pristine as always. She stood and tested her weight on her legs. No pain. One trip down the fire escape later, she was off to plant the photos at the library. A quick stop for an envelope at the post office, and she was handing the envelope with the two photos and a handwritten note to the clerk at the library. It had Martinez's name and phone number written on the front, and she gave him instructions to call her and tell her to come get it if she didn't come by tomorrow or the next day. She was getting impatient, and was ready to speed things along a little. She would have dropped it at the detective's house, but that would tell her that Emily knew where she lived. That was information she wanted to keep to herself for now, just in case. Satisfied that the detective would soon begin to figure things out, she left to go about her normal day. She called her head of security and asked if her alibi was airtight for the time of the shooting. Several employees of hers had seen "her" in her office, working. She asked the head of security to tell the double in a blonde wig that she now had the boss's permission to "go out to lunch," allowing the real Emily to come in after a change of clothes as though nothing had happened. She had learned long ago that it paid to be ready to answer questions before people asked them. She took a moment to appreciate her brilliance, then went about business as usual, all the while anticipating the pieces of her plan falling into place. Soon, this would be over and she would have Henry all to herself. Then, everything would be worth it. It had to be.

Jo replaced the key where she had found it, entering the empty shop and locking the door behind her. She stood among the antiques, unsure of what to do, what to think. Unsure of herself. Of her sanity. She had barely held it together enough to call Abraham, and now she swiped savagely at the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.

" _Abe," she began, voice cracking. She was freaking out in a big way._

" _Jo?" Abe had guessed, sounding worried. "What's wrong?"_

" _It's Henry. He's- gone. I, I don't know, I..." she trailed off uncertainly. "He just disappeared. There was so much blood, and..." Henry. Oh, God, Henry._

" _What did he say before he vanished?" he asked calmly. How the heck could he be calm right now? People disappearing into thin air after being shot was not normal! It was not okay!_

" _He- he said to call you and tell you to pick him up, that he would explain everything when he got back. Abe, what did he mean? Where did he go?" she yelled, on the verge of tears. Henry was shot, and now he was missing. This was not the time for calm. This was the time for screaming panic._

" _It's not really my place to say, but I can tell you for certain that he is absolutely fine. He's okay, Jo. I know it. I'm gonna go get him, and then he'll explain himself. Why don't you meet us at the shop? There's a spare key behind the brick of the windowsill closest to the door," he told her._

" _Okay," she agreed weakly. "I'll meet you there."_

There was nowhere to sit in the shop area, and she wasn't sure her legs could hold her, so she made her way upstairs and sank down on the couch where she'd spent the night that time she'd been drunk. She moaned and buried her face in her hands. Henry was dead. She had _seen_ him die. She'd been there as he choked out her name with his last breath. His blood had been all over her pants legs. All over her hands. She looked at them for the fifth time, turning them over to check for traces of blood. Still nothing. She was absolutely certain that he had been fatally shot, that his heart had stopped beating under her desperate hands. And yet Abe said he was fine. That she would see him soon. He had promised her himself that he would explain when he got back, that he was coming back. So the question of the hour was: Did she trust Henry and Abe more than she trusted her eyes? Before Emily Adler, she would have said yes without hesitation. Now, she knew through her research that Abe had lied to her about something so simple as his last name. And she had known from the start of their partnership that Henry was hiding something. The conversation with Ms. Adler that she'd eavesdropped on had made her worry for the first time that whatever it was could be dangerous to Henry. She cast her eyes around the room, hoping subconsciously for some clue about everything. She spotted a drawer propped open. Curious, she stood on steadier feet and walked over to it, peering inside. Passports. A lot of them. Had Henry kept all of his outdated passports? There were too many here for a whole lifetime of passports. She flashed back to the night she'd caught Henry packed with his passport ready to go, murder weapon in his hand. From what Lucas had said about the live autopsy flourishes mirroring Henry's, she should have had a thought, even just for a second, that he might have been the killer, but she hadn't. Her first thought had been worry for her friend and partner. Her second had been fear of him leaving. She picked up a passport at random and flipped to the picture page. Henry's face stared at her, handsome even taking into account the usual poor quality of passport photos. Her eyes caught on the name, Sergei Marmeladov, country of origin: Russia. What? She flipped quickly through the others in the drawer. Identical photos, all with different names and countries of birth. Why would Henry have all of these fake passports? Which one, if any, was real? Was his name even Henry Morgan? Wait, she was pretty sure he was actually named Henry Morgan. If not, all of her research added up to a heck of a lot of coincidences. Jo was reeling. It was too much, just too much. Suddenly, she was afraid to see Henry face to face. She still needed to know he was fine, but she wasn't certain she was ready to face the implications of this drawer yet. She closed the drawer carefully and descended the stairs. The door chimed as she reached the bottom. Abe stepped through, followed by Henry in a pair of sweats, a towel around his neck. His hair was wet. His feet were bare. She took in all these details without really processing them, because they were overshadowed by the most important fact. He was alive. He was okay. The relief overwhelmed her enough that she almost didn't notice that he looked as frightened as she had been. His face was a mask of apprehension and embarrassment.

"Jo, I know I said I would explain, but-" he began hesitantly.

"Shut up, Henry," she whispered as she threw her arms around his waist, hugging him tightly. That had never really been a part of their relationship, hugging, but she needed to convince herself that he was really here, physically. "I'm just really glad you're okay."

His arms wound around her and gave her a reassuring squeeze. He sighed, "Yes, Jo. I'm alright."

She let go of him and looked him over. Still wet, still breathing, still here. Still gorgeous. She strangled that thought quickly. Now was not the time. "You're not ready to tell me what the heck is going on?" she asked him.

He shook his head. "Not just yet Jo. I'm sorry," he apologized in a choked voice. His expression was pained.

He really did look regretful, and something else. As a cop, she was pretty good at reading people, Henry being the usual exception. But she could tell one thing: he was afraid. Of telling the truth? Of whatever was keeping him from telling the truth? Of how she would react? For now, it didn't matter. She couldn't handle the whole truth right now, anyway. She needed a minute to process, to do some more digging, this time rooted in the present. But maybe she'd devote a little time to her other project, too. It was frustrating a lot, sure, but she had started to like combing through the old records. It felt like police work, tracking down leads and such. A visit to the library and some time among the dusty stacks would calm her down a little, maybe even distract her. Yep. That would be where she'd go from here. She would have to call work and ask for a day off. She had enough of them left. She finished pondering her course of action and realized that she'd been staring at Henry while lost in thought, and cleared her throat.

"That's just as well, Henry," she assured him. "I don't think I'm ready just yet, anyway. I need some time. Don't you dare die on me again, though. Or I swear to God, when you come back from the dead, I will slap you, harder than you've ever known you could be hit, for scaring me. Am I clear?" she asked, only half-joking.

"As crystal, Detective," he answered respectfully, stunned.

"See you at work tomorrow then," she said.

She bid him and Abe goodbye and then left, accompanied by the cheerful chime of the bell over the door. It was time for some serious research to take her mind off things. She called the Lieutenant and asked for a personal day. Reese was understandably shocked and asked if she was feeling alright. Jo chuckled and answered that she was fine, she just was feeling a little wrung out and needed a day to herself to wind down. She was granted permission, which was good because she was already entering the library. She approached the desk clerk and asked him about microfiche and microfilm.

"Sure, I can help you with the machines. But, uh, first, I have something for you. A lady dropped off this envelope for you. I told her that we were not, in fact, the post office, but she said she didn't have your address. She just knew you'd been here a lot for the past few weeks. Anyway, here it is," he said, handing her a cream envelope with her name and phone number on the front in familiar feminine handwriting.

"What lady? Why is my phone number on here?" she pressed him.

"Just some blonde woman. Didn't leave her name. She said to call you to come get this if you weren't back here in a couple of days," he replied. Adler. Jo suppressed a growl. That witch had her phone number, but didn't seem to know where she lived, thank God.

"Thanks. Um, hold off on showing me the machines for now. I'll come get you when I need help," Jo muttered.

"Sure. Any time," the guy said.

In a back corner of the library on the upper floor, Jo opened the envelope with shaking hands. Inside was a folded piece of paper with writing on it and two photographs. She looked at the note first. _Detective Martinez,_ it said, _It seems like your search for truth has stagnated somewhat. Thought I could help you along a bit. Look on the back of the pictures for names and dates, and the first Henry Morgan did some time in 1815 at Charing Cross Asylum (AKA Bedlam). He later went to and escaped from Southwark Prison in 1816. Just some tidbits you can look into. Happy to help, A history enthusiast._ Jo then examined the photos. The first was a simple black and white shot of some soldiers in uniform posing by a tent in a sparsely wooded area. They were smiling and had their arms thrown around each other. Jo's eyes were drawn to the one in the lower right corner, crouching by a backpack. His helmet was different from the rest, marked with a cross. She knew from her earlier research that it meant he was a medic. A closer look at his face made her breath catch. Henry. The photo wasn't great and the face was small, but it was undeniably her Henry. She stared at it a long time before remembering the instructions to flip it over on the back. In Henry's familiar looped cursive handwriting that drove the secretaries at the precinct, who had to file everything, crazy, it said: _My regiment, France 1916._ What? She had known that the Henrys were connected, but this was too much. The same handwriting? The same _face_ , for God's sake? She quickly flipped to the other photo and she stopped breathing entirely for half a minute. There, in the foreground, was a younger Abraham, trying to take the picture and be in it at the same time. In the background was Sylvia Blake, or rather Abigail Morgan, as she had learned, younger than in the missing persons case photo. Looking at her was Henry, again. Her Henry. He looked so... happy. Happier than she'd ever seen him. He was smiling and looking at this woman with such love, such adoration, that she felt her heart clench with irrational jealousy directed at the dead woman. She remembered asking Henry, _Who is she, to you?_ and he hadn't truly answered her. Maybe this was why. Her mind frantically searched for explanations and found none that were remotely rational. So maybe it was time to try irrational. What were the facts? The facts... She couldn't grab ahold of anything that seemed important. The only thing left to do was follow the clue Adler had left for her and then go back to her apartment to try and fit together the information she had into a clear picture. The boards had really helped her organize her thoughts when this was just about research, so maybe they could help her get it together now. Jo was aware that she was using her newfound obsession as a crutch to deal with the craziness being heaped upon her, but she didn't care. She was off to pore through the records of Bedlam's inmates.

On the fifth page of records for the correct year, she saw the entry with First Henry's name and a reference to case notes by a doctor who had been working with him. The listing only had First Henry's name, the doctor's name, and the diagnosis and the date. The diagnosis unhelpfully said "Madness." It took her half an hour to find the case notes. What she read disturbed her. She didn't know what hydrotherapy was, so she looked it up on her phone. It was appalling. How could an educated person who supposedly wanted to help the mentally ill torment a human being like that? She read on. _Doctor Morgan, committed by his wife, Nora, persists in his lie that he was only temporarily confused and that he no longer believes in his delusion. Hydrotherapy has been only somewhat successful, but I am confident in its value... A test was performed today to assess whether Dr. Morgan has indeed given up this wild fantasy. His wife consented to sit beside his bed and await his return to consciousness after sedation and pretend that she had witnessed his death and eventual return to life. She felt uneasy at pretending to take a vow to keep his "secret" in fear of perpetuating his madness, but we assured her that it was the only way to ascertain the extent of her husband's condition... Dr. Morgan, believing he was alone with his wife and that she believed in his delusion as well, he admitted that he had not in fact given up on it. He was taken back to his rooms under much protest from himself... Due to Dr. Morgan's utter refusal to make progress in his return to sanity, I am forced to admit that he may be beyond help. In order to make room for more patients, I am recommending he be moved to Southwark Prison for the foreseeable future..._ Jo put the scan of the old document down, stunned. Nora was the name of the woman that Adler had mentioned at the tea house, who Jo had guessed was Henry's wife. Combined with all of the other similarities to her Henry's life, it was starting to look like there were no coincidences left to be made. But another thing about the notes caught her attention as well. "Death and eventual return to life" sounded a lot like what had happened with her Henry earlier that morning. She filed that away as something she could use to figure out this mess later. Right now, she let herself feel sorry for First Henry. That poor man for whatever reason had been put in that horrible place by a woman he probably loved and trusted, been practically tortured, lied to, and eventually sent to prison. This thought reminded Jo to look up the prison records. There wasn't much about First Henry's time spent there, but it did say he shared a cell with a Catholic priest. There was less than a paragraph about his escape. The gist of it was that the priest had been found alone with a noose made of sheets hanging from the rafter, cell still locked, window intact, but First Henry gone. He was never found. Feeling like she had looked all she could into these new leads, she left the library, with a quick apology to the desk clerk for making him think she needed help with the microfilm machines when she had ended up not using them. He said it was fine, and waved her on her way.

Back at home, Jo carefully pinned her new photos to the names of the Henrys she thought they corresponded to. The photo of Abigail and Abe's father was connected to Abigail's case file with string and pins since there was so little about the man other than the line in the case file. The photo of the Henry in 1916 France with the soldiers was connected to a scan of the enlistment records for England in World War I with his name highlighted. They were the only photos she had other than the one of her Henry and the one of Abigail from her missing persons file. She stood back and looked over her work. She took out her notes with the new information and placed them near the records of First Henry. Now all that was left was to make and edit connections with her pins and strings. She drew a connection between First Henry's Nora and her Henry's Nora, as well as between the two Abigails. She let the line about dying and coming back to life come to the front of her mind. At least three of the Henrys had the same face, there were two Noras and two Abigails, First Henry thought he was immortal and escaped from prison without a trace, leaving behind only a noose. Immortal... First Henry had "died" aboard the Empress only to later be found alive but sentenced to Bedlam and then prison, which he had escaped, leaving behind only an instrument of suicide. She had been sure her Henry had been shot and dove off a rooftop on their first case. He had no self-preservation instinct. He knew about parts of the history books you had to be there to see. His stalker had claimed to be immortal. Adler supposedly regenerated her tissue and talked about times gone by with Henry like they were decades ago, but had to have been less than fifteen years at the most. Decades... She realized suddenly that with all of the death records she'd found, they never once mentioned a burial or a body. She sank onto the couch as it hit her like a ton of bricks. How had she missed it? She wouldn't have thought it was possible, but the only explanation was staring her in the face. All of the Henrys were one and the same, they were all her Henry, and he was... immortal. No Henry besides First Henry had had any childhood indicated. Every other one seemed to appear from nowhere. All of them were doctors, and many had ties to both Britain and New York. The incomplete information int the records had frustrated her but with the final piece of the falsified passports, she realized that the gaps were purposeful and that they in themselves told a story of information someone didn't want found. No Henry had seemed to stay in the same location for long. And her Henry supposedly moved around often. Why? It now seemed obvious that he wanted to cover the fact that he didn't age. Adler had referenced that she wasn't as durable as the "original" and was capable of dying. Henry must have been the person that the formula that sustained the woman had come from. Jo struggled to process the implications. This meant that Henry was over 200 years old and incapable of aging or dying. It meant that the mysterious Adam and the infuriating Adler were both likely immortal as well. Adler. She had lead Jo to this, stringing her along to come to this conclusion. Jo dug out the envelope that the photos had been in and realized why the handwriting was so familiar. It was the same script as the second line of text on the cab's backseat. She swore. Adler must have been the one to shoot Henry, knowing he wouldn't die permanently. But why? Why drop hints and let Jo eavesdrop and shoot Henry in front of her? What was the point? The plan? This must have been what Henry had been about to explain, but he hadn't. Was it because of Adler? What kind of threat could you make against a man who can't die? The answer came unsettlingly fast. The kind of threat to someone he cared about who could. Was it Abe? The thought made her despise Adler all the more. How could she, knowing what Henry had been through? She obviously knew enough if she could point Jo to the right books and documents. How had she gotten ahold of the pictures with Henry's handwriting on the back? She must have broken into his apartment... Jo swore when she realized that Henry never would have been so careless as to leave the drawer full of secret passports open for anyone to see, or Abe either. That told her that Adler must have left that open for her to find as well. Was there nothing she had discovered that she hadn't been led to like a dog on a leash by that horrible woman?

Her research in the middle had been all her own. These boards were hers alone. She chuckled when she remembered how panicked she'd been when Henry came to her door that night. She had scrambled to cover the boards and block the door so he couldn't look in and see the lives of his ancestors spread out in the middle of her living room. She knew now that they were all him and she felt guilty. The whole reason she hadn't cross examined Henry's current personal records was that she hadn't felt right about violating his privacy. Now that she knew that her "history" research had no degrees of separation from her Henry, she felt like she was no better than Adler snooping through his private information. What was the word Henry had used? Reprehensible. She remembered the word from her AP 12 English course. It meant disgraceful, wrong, an action to be condemned. She felt dirty. She wanted to get rid of the boards, but hesitated. With a sigh, she admitted to herself that she couldn't just tear it down or stick it in the back of a closet. She had labored for weeks on this, and despite the fact that she had been sticking her nose into Henry's secrets without his permission, she still felt proud of how much she'd managed to find- how much she'd accomplished. She couldn't bear to destroy it all. She wondered what to do now that she'd figured it out. She could do what she'd been doing, and refuse to let on how much she knew, but knowing how he'd suffered, how he'd been lied to, by his own wife for Jesus' sake, it felt unforgivable to add one more deception to the list, whose length she could only guess at. The only thing to do at this point was come clean. She would invite Henry over and show him the boards, tell him what she knew and apologize for digging in the first place. She could only hope he'd forgive her. Henry being Henry, he'd want to know how she was coping with the immortality thing. Jo honestly wasn't sure about that part. How _did_ she feel about this? Sad, mostly. She wasn't a crier, but tears leaked from the corners of her eyes thinking about how the Henry who had been basically waterboarded, in the place his wife condemned him to, was her best friend. He had _died_ who knew how many times. Did he feel the pain? The struggle he'd put into trying to speak around the blood in his lungs when he'd been dying in front of her told her that he did. He had also had to watch people around him, friends and loved ones, age and die, helpless to do anything about it. People like Abigail... and Abe, who she just realized must be his son. He would outlive his child, outlive everyone, outlive her... She shook her head to clear it. This wasn't a pity party she had any right to be invited to. She had been so desperate to know something, anything about her secretive, mysterious partner and friend. Now she had more information than ever, personal, private things he'd probably told very few living souls, but he hadn't told her. She had stolen this information she'd had no right to take from him. She hadn't _earned_ his biggest secret. It hurt that he hadn't trusted her enough to tell her, even when she'd been afraid for his life. But that still didn't make what she'd done okay. She would call him, ask him to come over, and tell him everything. She would be honest like she hadn't for the past weeks and pray that he didn't just pack up and go. She picked up her phone and dialed. It rang in her ear until Lucas picked up.

"Yello," he greeted informally. If Henry was there, he'd be admonishing the young doctor for answering the phone unprofessionally.

"Lucas, it's Jo," she said. "Is Henry there?"

"Hey, Detective Martinez! I heard you had taken the day off. I practically fell out of my chair when Hanson told me you weren't coming in. I asked if you had been shot- again," he chattered.

"Lucas, Henry?" she prompted.

"Oh! Oh, right. Um, he left about half an hour ago. He's probably home by now," he replied, back on track.

"Home? It's only..." she trailed off as she glanced at her watch and realized that it was almost 7 at night. She'd been lost in thought for longer than it had felt like, it seemed. "Right. Thanks, Lucas. Bye." She hung up.

She dialed Henry's home number, and he answered on the first ring. "Detective?" he asked.

"I thought you had one of those old rotary phones, no caller ID," Jo commented.

"Well," Henry mumbled, sounding embarrassed. "I was simply hoping it was you. Not many people have reason to call me."

"It's me," she said unnecessarily. "I was wondering, could you come over? I thought we could talk."

"Jo," he sighed. "I still can't say anything about his morning..."

"You don't have to. I know Ms. Adler threatened someone you care about and I'm pretty sure I know how you're still alive, but I don't need you to explain anything you don't want to. I actually need to say something to you, and show you something, too. Just, come over? Please?" she asked him.

There was a long pause. She could just imagine him scrubbing a frustrated hand down his face or through his hair as he thought, like she'd seen him do on many a case.

"Alright, Detective," he said, finally. "I'll be over shortly."

"See you soon," Jo whispered, not sure if he heard the words before hanging up or not.

She was far from ready for this conversation, but she had to do it sometime, and it was better to tackle it now, before she lost her nerve. She was beyond nervous, but it was past time to be open and tell the truth. Time. Something she had avoided thinking about since Shawn's death because it reminded her how long she'd gone without him. It reminded her about the unfairness of how little he'd had. But thinking about Henry- seeing the years pass away, taking trends, eras, people with them, leaving him unmoving like a rock in the middle of a river, not going anywhere, always in the same place, but slowly worn down by the passage of water and time- thinking about that, she thought that maybe having too much time wasn't quite fair either.

In her own apartment, Emily Adler threw the receiver for the bug she'd placed in Henry's phone across the room, shattering it. She had wanted to speed things up a little, certainly, but she hadn't expected the woman to figure it out so quickly, in one afternoon! She had made the mistake of underestimating Detective Martinez. Grabbing a taser, knife, and handcuffs, she vowed to never make that mistake again. It was vital she pay a visit to the detective before Henry arrived. She had not expected her adversary to be so honest with her darling Henry, so ready to be judged and perhaps despised for the sake of telling the truth to the man she loved. Emily had underestimated the annoying strength of her character as well. Darn. Well, mistakes were easily made and easily righted. She told herself that it wasn't too late for her plan to succeed, that it wasn't too late for Henry to love her. It couldn't be. As an immortal, she was not used to being so limited by something so trivial and inconsequential as time since her emergence from the Thames so long ago. She would not let her designs fall apart in the face of a thing so tiny and insignificant as people not operating on her projected schedule. After all, hadn't she been impatient with the slow progress? She had to see this as an opportunity, not a problem. She looked up at the building that housed her rival for the affections of her soulmate and smiled. Yes, an opportunity. Finally, all of the tantalizing, seductive, glorious ideas that had been buzzing around her head in regards to how to make Detective Jo Martinez suffer could be set free. Mmmm... how delightful.

-End Chapter-

A/N: Creepy ending right? Worry not, Jo will be fine and I'll get the new chapter up as soon as I can so _you_ don't die of suspense, my lovelies. Warning that I'll repeat at the beginning of the next chapter: If this story goes the way I'm planning, there will be blood and screaming. Like periods! But scarier. I will try to make it so no reader gets too freaked out and no character gets too maimed. This next installment will either be the last or next to last chapter. As always, thanks for the reads and reviews. Your kindness and interest in my stories brightens my days. I am grateful beyond words for all of your continued support for me and my writing. It means the world to me.


	7. Chapter 6: All Things Must End (Or not)

Author's Note: Warning, there is a brief kissing scene between two women, which I know is squick for some people. I'll mark that section with brackets like [this] if you want to skip over it. It's not as important to the plot as it is to Emily's characterization, so you don't have to read it if you don't want to. Also, there is a violent death/injury or two, so I'll mark those sections with brackets like {this} if you want to skip that part. You'll be able to figure out what happened without reading those bits. Enjoy, lovelies.

Chapter 6: Flashbacks and Finales

Emily glanced at Detective Martinez as the woman stirred and groaned in what she hoped was pain. It served the little minx right for breaking her jaw upon seeing her in the doorway to her home. She probed the flesh that was now only slightly tender. At the time it had hurt sharply. It had taken so long to heal because she hadn't had time to set the break until a moment ago. She had needed to drive away rather quickly to avoid being seen by Henry. Even with her masterful evasion, she wasn't certain that he hadn't seen her as she sped away from the curb at the detective's dwelling. Sitting back against the ledge of the roof, she sighed and wondered how she'd come to this. Abducting people like some common vagrant. Thinking, she found scores of people to blame, though if she were being honest, it was partially her fault that she had ended up here. She preferred to blame Adam, chiefly. She had never really hurt anyone except in dire self-defense until she met the ancient immortal. Admittedly, she had been a little starry eyed at his centuries of experience. She had followed him like a stray cat, even when he'd been up to no good, desperate to please, desperate for the kind of fatherly advice and love she had never received from her own sire. Adam's advice was of a slightly different nature, however.

" _Remember, cut two inches below the jawline to fully slit the throat and sever the windpipe," he coached in his gravelly American-accented voice. Emily wondered what he sounded like in his first language, no disguises. She doubted if he even remembered himself._

" _I'm not certain about this," she fretted, looking down at the terrified face of the local butcher. He was so afraid. Perhaps he could be bribed or threatened rather than killed._

" _He saw you sustain an injury that should have been fatal and recover miraculously before his eyes. He knows your secret. To keep yourself safe, he has to die," Adam coaxed, handing her the knife. Still, she hesitated._

" _Murder is a line I've yet to cross, and I would prefer to keep it that way. As much as I might disagree with the more Puritanical admonitions of the Bible, I have never had quarrel with the rule against killing people," she insisted._

" _This man could expose you. He could have you locked up and cut open. He could have you stared at like some curiosity for the amusement of these lesser beings. Think of it as an extension of self-defense. A preemptive strike, if you will," he persuaded smoothly, appealing to her fear._

 _She shuddered at the implications. She had no desire to be studied gruesomely or gawped at by fools on the street. She hated to put this man's life before her own, but her suffering would last much longer than his if she were discovered._

" _I'm sorry," she whispered as she followed Adam's instructions and drew the knife quickly across the man's exposed throat._

 _His protests muffled by the gag turned into a pained gurgle, then silence as he fell to the concrete floor of the storage unit, dead. Emily was crying silently as Adam placed a hand on her shoulder and murmured encouragement._

" _Good girl."_

She heard a series of thumps and looked up to see the detective struggling against the bonds that held her to the chair. She was glaring at Emily with undisguised, bitter hatred. Emily hadn't put a gag on her, because New York in this area was too full of noise for anyone to notice one woman shouting several stories above their heads, so she was honestly surprised that Martinez was not spitting expletives in her direction. The stony silence was disconcerting.

"Do you have something you wish to say to me?" she asked politely.

"Well, I think it's rather obvious that you're a crazy b-, so I don't think I should have to spell it out for you. Other than that, I was just thinking that right now I feel like I'm looking in a seriously screwed up funhouse mirror," she said, nodding at Emily, who glanced down at her dark slacks and jacket and wine purple blouse. She saw nothing wrong with it. Martinez was wearing blue.

"You mean my attire?" she clarified, ignoring the slur. "It has come to my attention that one needs to dress like a man in these awful trousers and 'sensible' shoes in order to attract Henry's attention these days. I thought I'd give it a go. Truly, though, these things are terribly confining. And I grew up when corsets that bent your ribs into different positions were in fashion. I'm glad that women no longer have to wear them. All the same, how do you stand having your legs encased in individual sleeves of fabric? They're not very comfortable."

"They make it easier to preserve my modesty and get caught on fewer things when I'm chasing a suspect. How do _you_ stand being an obsessive stalkerish psychopath?" she retorted.

"One gets used to being a little mad after enough time," she replied, not offended. "Speaking of time, I'm assuming that based on your call to Henry, you've figured it out. Were my little clues helpful?"

"Yeah, I've guessed the big secret. One thing I don't understand, though. Why make sure I found out without Henry telling me? What was the point?"

"The point, detective, was to show you both that the other had lied to you about something important. In your case, digging into Henry's past, in his case, the secret to end all secrets that he kept from his partner, a woman he supposedly trusts implicitly," she explained. "I calculated that the deceptions you both made would be offensive to the other person and thus end the relationship. When the woman he cared for so deeply walked away from him, who better to turn to for comfort than the woman who never stopped caring for him? It was the perfect plan until you rather outpaced my estimate of your ability to admit mistakes and be vulnerable. Honestly, how do you get through your sort of job without bursting into tears all the time, as sensitive as you are?"

"I manage," Martinez quipped curtly. "You do realize that you sound delusional and obsessively infatuated, right? No sane person would think that any of that makes sense."

"Just because you are incapable of comprehending the brilliance in my scheme does not mean that it wouldn't have worked with more time to observe your habits and more patience on my part. Perhaps I simply should have waited until you died naturally or engineered your death in a way that couldn't be traced back to me," she admitted. There was, if not a camaraderie between the two women, an understanding or mutual curiosity at least. _Who was this other woman who had been so important in Henry's life?_ , they were both thinking.

"Well, why didn't you?" the detective asked, shoulders moving subtly in a way that Emily recognized as an attempt to escape her binds.

"If you are merely stalling me to try and escape, don't waste your breath or the skin on your wrists. I'm a crazy b-, remember? You have rope, zip ties, and tape holding you at the wrists and ankles. I'm paranoid enough to think you have the capability to escape at least one of my countermeasures, so I put three in place. If you're actually interested in my answer, I don't mind telling you. To be honest, if you weren't competition for Henry's affections, I would rather like you. Perhaps I won't torture you after all," she said amiably.

"Alright. Um, I appreciate that. And I really would like to know, since you seem to be in the mood to chat," she said carefully, no longer moving her hands to try and break her binds.

"You would think, after a century and a half, that I would have developed some patience, but alas, it seems to have done the opposite and eroded from what little I had to begin with. Therefore, I couldn't just wait for you to die. As for murder... when you know the person will come back alive and unharmed, that's one thing. To kill in cold blood for personal gain is another entirely. I meant what I said, in the teahouse. I still value human life. I think I always will. That's not to say I haven't murdered a few people in my day. But those were considerably more justified and less premeditated than killing someone over something so petty as jealousy," Emily continued.

"You are a confusing person, Ms. Adler. About eighty percent of the time, you seem unbalanced and heartless and way too obsessed with Henry. But times like now, for instance, you actually seem somewhat reasonable and less insane," Martinez said it like she expected it to upset her, but it didn't. She took it as a compliment.

"Thank you. It comes and goes, to be honest. I think the impression of insanity I give off is due in part to the lack of stability in my personality. And not to be picky, but you've done your share of obsessing over Henry these past few weeks as well. I used to be a more level-headed individual, I think. Often it's hard to tell the difference between memory and the present. Ah, well. No use worrying over such things. Can't have myself committed, lose track of time, and have the nurses realizing I don't age. That wouldn't do at all," Emily reminded herself as much as the detective.

"So Henry is the same, right? He doesn't age or die? How did you find that out, exactly?" Jo asked her.

Emily replied, "Indeed. And that is quite the story, I was thinking about it just the other day, in fact, when I was looking through the scope of a sniper rifle. I wouldn't mind recounting it for you..."

 _It was autumn, around the end of October. I remember it well. The day was typical of London for the season. Wet and dreary._

"Why do people always start in with descriptions of the weather when telling a story? It's a funny thing," Emily commented. "Anyway, the important part is not outside just yet. It's in the lab."

 _I entered from the street, carrying a small parcel of new test tubes from the post office. Henry had sent me to fetch them. Of course, he was Doctor Morgan to me then. I was just his assistant. A cab had offered me a ride across town. I suppose because I looked so pitiful trying to shield my head from the persistent drizzle and juggle my fragile package at the same time. The point is, I got to the lab much faster than I normally would have and I surprised Henry in the middle of an experiment to see if his blood in a sealed container from a non-fatal injury would stay behind after a death. So here I am, soaked to the skin carrying all this glass and I see him with a scalpel at his wrist. I shouted his name, of course, and I startled him so badly that the blade jerked across the artery and blood gushed out. I wasn't one of those ladies prone to swooning, but I nearly fainted. All the same, I dropped the box of test tubes and I could tell from the crashing sound that they had shattered into a million pieces. I didn't care at the time, naturally, but I was embarrassed about it later. I rushed over, blubbering about needing to call a doctor. He of course reminded me that he is a doctor and told me everything would be fine, but he would need me to pick him up from the river._

" _But you aren't at the river," I protested._

" _Not yet," he said._

 _And then, the nerve of that man, he vanished on the tail end of that statement. I always knew he had a flair for the dramatic. I trusted my beloved mentor, as frightened as I was, and I combed the banks of the Thames for nigh on half an hour before I found him hiding behind the pillar of a bridge, stark naked. It was enough to make a good Victorian girl's cheeks flame to see her teacher, a man she was not related to, in such a state. Me, I grinned at him and told him he ought to bring back a stitch of clothing the next time he decided to get resurrected. I was a pretty unflappable girl, if I may say so. I helped him get back to the lab and get a change of clothing without compromising his decency to any further people and he told me the whole secret. Over the next months, he'd occasionally share a story or two outside of the main narrative with me. I always felt honored that he'd share such things with a nothing like me. How could I help but fall in love with such an impossible, brilliant man who'd made me his confidant? I couldn't._

"So there you have it, the whole tale of the first time I saw Henry Morgan die," Emily finished.

Martinez was laughing.

"What's gotten into you?" she wondered.

"The skinny dipping," Martinez chuckled.

"The what now?" she asked.

"Skinny dipping. Henry got in trouble with the department a few times for indecent exposure for swimming naked in the East River. I guess now I understand why he couldn't solve the 'sleepwalking' problem by investing in some pajamas," she explained. She frowned suddenly, looking thoughtful and sad.

"Cor, woman. From laughing to pouting in under a minute. What is it now?" Emily asked.

"I just realized. All those times he got arrested for skinny dipping. He died. Henry has died so many times just since I've known him. That's awful," Martinez murmured, somber.

"More than you know. Those are just the times he got caught," Emily said helpfully.

"That's not even slightly comforting," she huffed.

"It wasn't meant to be. I have no reason whatsoever to make you feel better. In case you've forgotten, I don't particularly like you," Emily pointed out.

"Nope, it would be kinda hard to forget how much you dislike me seeing as I'm still tied to this chair you strapped me to after kidnapping me. But I am confused. Not that I'm not glad you decided against torturing me, but you hate me and you don't seem like torture would bother you. Why the change of heart?" she asked carefully.

"More like a change of mind. I'm fairly changeable, as you may have noticed. I decided a long time ago to make Henry suffer for breaking my heart but I was so undone by his apology that I decided to try and steal him from you instead. I had honestly forgotten how wildly attractive that man is," she sighed happily. "I was prepared to kill him as many times as necessary until it took. I was actually armed that day in the morgue when you met me. So deciding not to torture you is not that big of a leap, considering. That reminds me that I haven't really figured out what to do with you instead. Maybe you could suggest something?"

"You want me to recommend how best to get rid of me?" Martinez asked incredulously.

"Not necessarily. Kidnapping you was mostly a stalling technique to prevent your confession and probable reconciliation with Henry. I'm not quite sure what to do with you now," Emily admitted.

"You could let me go," Martinez said without much hope.

"Why should I? I am asking for a real reason, not just attempting to be difficult," she clarified.

"You care about Henry in your own weird way, right? I'm his friend. He would be sad if you killed or hurt me. You said it yourself, that Henry has been through enough. And I doubt you want to keep me around forever," she added. "You're not exactly fond of me."

Emily thought this over. It was not what she wanted to do, but she couldn't see any tasteful alternatives. Yes, she wanted Henry for herself, but she didn't want it like this. He'd never love someone who tortured people, especially a person he cared about so much. It burned her that he did care for this woman so much when he had lost affection for her, but she realized that being a rebound after Martinez was out of the way was not what she wanted. She wanted to be chosen, to be desired. And even if she wasn't ready to give up on Henry being the one to want her quite yet, she was willing to wait for him to realize that her love was more than some childish infatuation. Patience was hard, but so was anything worth doing. It wasn't as though she couldn't have other lovers in the meantime; she already had. She sighed deeply when the full measure of how detestably she had been acting hit her. Perhaps... perhaps she had gone too far. Coming to the conclusion that she would have to figure herself out before coming to Henry again, she knew that there was only one question left that mattered.

"Do you love him?" Emily asked quietly.

"What?" Martinez exclaimed.

"If I'm going to let you go- go back to Henry, I need to know if you love him half so much as he loves you," Emily explained.

"I don't- he doesn't..." she protested haltingly.

"Don't bother denying it. I won't make you tell him, though I would advise you to do so, but I need to know for my own peace of mind. I'm not going to turn you loose on him if you don't love him enough to treat him gently and not break his heart. I see the way he looks at you," Emily breathed. "Think of all the times Henry has leapt in front of a bullet for you, risking his secret being exposed in favor of saving your life. He doesn't trust easily, but that thick-headed man trusts you more than he knows how to express. He loves you and I am jealous of that, but I love him, too and I want him to be happy. After all he's been through, I think he deserves it. So, do you love him?"

Martinez hesitated, but Emily was fairly certain that she was more reluctant to admit this truth she'd been avoiding to herself than to Emily.

"Yes," she finally verbalized. "I love him. So much. It's ridiculous and impractical and knowing his secret, I know it can't last, but my heart doesn't seem to care about excuses and all the reasons it can't possibly work."

"He has that effect on people. And a word of advice from someone who's been there: stop caring about how much time you have left and treasure every second you get with him because they are precious. I was worried about him outliving me and leaving me behind and look where it got me," she said, bitterness creeping in.

"I'm sorry," Martinez said with sincerity.

"You know, you're making it harder to hate you. I'll manage, though," she spoke lightheartedly.

She moved to untie the binds on the other woman's wrists and ankles. She made it through the rope and zip ties with a small knife, but then a voice sounded from the shadows by the door to the roof.

"What are you doing?" Adam stepped from the doorway with a scowl on his face.

"Dr. Farber?" Martinez asked. Emily had forgotten that Adam had posed as Henry's therapist.

"Not exactly," he rumbled. "I'm Adam. You may have heard of me."

"Henry's immortal stalker. I'm all caught up now," Martinez snapped. "You're a sick and twisted killer, you know that?"

"No, just enlightened. I have seen the truth, that I have been given this curse because I am better than the rest of the pathetic mewling dregs of humanity. I am worthier, and great men must suffer to achieve greatness. Life ends sometime. People die; it's what they do. What does it matter if I hasten it along a bit?" Adam rumbled. "But I'm not here to talk to you. Emily, why are you releasing the good detective? Do you want a fairer fight when you eliminate your rival? To desire a challenge is admirable, but it would be simpler to hold her down while you strip the skin off of her."

Martinez shivered at his offhanded remark on the best method by which to murder her. Emily wasn't past being revolted by it either.

"I'm letting her go," Emily said, subtly continuing to cut the tape from her ankles. "I realize now that this is not the way. I can be patient."

"What is the point of patience when she is beneath you? She is an obstacle in your path to Henry, one you need to remove. Stop cutting the binds and come back to your senses," Adam admonished.

"Like you removed Abigail? I'm not taking away one more person Henry cares about. I'm not you. I _have_ come back to my senses. maybe for the first time since I met you. I let you make me into a killer, but I can choose to stop this right now. I am choosing my own path," Emily insisted as the last of the tape peeled away from the detective's ankles. She started in on her wrists.

"Abigail killed herself. I won't let you throw away these plans. You were supposed to kill her and give Dr. Morgan a better target for vengeance than me so he wouldn't get in my way. I've had enough of this... _partnership_ ," he barked. "I can still slit her throat just like I taught you and let you take the blame."

With that, he drew a knife and leapt at the two women with murder in his eyes. Emily held him off, but he was relentless. She sustained multiple slashes in important veins. Her century and a half of practice was no match for his two thousand years' experience. She managed to deal some blows of her own, but nothing short of a fatal wound would get rid of him long enough to get away. She finally got in a deep cut near his carotid artery, but only by letting him past her defenses long enough for him to jab a knife into her left lung and twist it violently. Martinez had been working this whole time on tearing through the remaining tape, and now she broke through in time to jump up and punch Adam hard in the throat, adding enough of an extra gush to the flow of blood to drain him of too much to function. He dropped to the ground. Adler remained standing for a moment more then collapsed to her knees, struggling to breathe as her lungs took their sweet time to heal themselves. She coughed up blood for almost a minute that felt like an eternity until her breathing returned to normal. Whew. That had been highly unpleasant and she had thought for a moment that this would be the injury that got her.

"Are you alright?" Martinez inquired.

"Well, my lungs seem to have fixed the tear, so I'm considerably better, and my knife wounds are closing now, so that's something," she assessed, holding out her arms for the detective to see the skin sealing itself off and reabsorbing the blood.

"That's freaky, but- and I can't believe I'm about to say this- I'm glad you're okay," she stammered awkwardly.

"Don't get sentimental on me now, Detective," she laughed softly. Just because I didn't want Adam to kill the both of us doesn't mean I've entirely gotten over my aversion to you."

"Understood. Look, I still think you're pretty crazy, but I also think that this dark, mysterious past that you allude to isn't all that dark. You want to seem tough, but you're kinda a softie. We both care about Henry and don't really enjoy each other's company, and neither of us really wants to kill the other anymore as near as I can tell, so let's just leave whatever relationship we have at that," Martinez retorted.

"Agreed. Cooperation in circumstances of Henry or mutual survival only," she affirmed, extending her hand to shake. Martinez accepted. She was glad that the detective didn't seem to be under the mistaken impression that they were friends simply because she hadn't allowed her to be brutally murdered. "Has Adam disappeared yet?" she asked, having her back to the place where he'd fallen. She couldn't bear to look at her traitorous former mentor.

"Disappeared? Is that how that works? No, he's still..." Martinez trailed off, eyes wide. "Look out!"

Emily whirled to see that Adam had staggered to his feet and, being disarmed of his knife, had raised the chair to swing at them in a last temperamental effort to hurt the two irritating women in some way. Martinez was moving to intercept, but they were too close to the edge of the roof, so Emily shoved her aside and moved to intercept the chair's blow. She grabbed hold of it and heaved it around to push Adam against the low ledge around the perimeter of the roof. She tossed the chair over the edge, not wanting to get tangled in the wooden legs during the struggle. She shoved with all her might against Adam's chest, but he clawed at her arms and managed to capture her wrist in an iron grip, taking her off the roof with him, following the path of the chair shattered on the pavement below. Emily moved into the best position to fall from that she could manage with a maniac attached to her arm like a vise. She curled her lip in disgust as she followed every stereotype, having her life flash before her eyes.

 _A blurry collage of childhood memories floated in her vision. Swimming at the estate pond, riding on horseback with the breeze tangled in her hair, practicing violin and waltz, hours spent immersed in books of adventure._

 _[She shared a stolen kiss, warm and sweet with Magdalena, the daughter of the housekeeper. Her fingers tangled in Magda's dark curls and she felt butterflies of desire and affection stir deep in her belly. She never wanted it to end.]_

 _Her father sneered with disappointment over her crumpled form. Her cheek still stung from the back-handed slap that had landed there when she had told him his opinion of her female lover didn't matter to her overmuch. The throbbing in her head pounded out a rhythm for the sentence her father laid down._

" _You are unnatural filth. If you refuse to recant your wicked ways and admit that this- this_ negro _tempted you to sinful destruction, I have no use for you. Get out of this house and do not return until you are cleansed of this wanton behavior. You are nothing to me. You hear me? Nothing."_

 _She looked to her mother for help, but the woman who had raised her and taught her how to sew and dance and had cared for her during every childhood illness turned her head away, ashamed of her daughter._

 _Henry held her as she wept angry tears, cursing her disloyal family. She felt guilty for feeling so good in his arms when she had been disowned with no money, no home, nowhere to go. But he murmured to her that it would be alright and that she had nothing to be embarrassed of. He never judged her, only offered to pay her for her lab work and help her find a flat to stay in. That was the first time she felt real pangs of love for her teacher, but it was not the last._

 _She snuck glances at Henry from the corners of her eyes, admiring his handsome face. She listened to his every word with fascination, throwing herself into this work that would either help him return to the world of mortal men or help her join him in immortality. She fell in love with him a little more every day._

 _When he said that her age made him uncomfortable with her confession of love, that she was like a sister to him, that she went too far with the research, she felt her heart break into several microscopic pieces that would not heal as fast as her near-invulnerable skin. She couldn't bear the concerned, apologetic look on his face, turned and ran from him. A cab veered to avoid her, but the horse reared and its hooves struck her in the collarbone and the hip, sending her stumbling to the edge of the bank, careening into the icy waters of the Thames. The last thing she heard was Henry calling her name before she succumbed to the frigid, tumultuous currents._

 _She stood over the prone form of a woman's body, breathing heavily. It had been a tough fight, but she had won. That woman would think twice before trying to turn anybody into her next science project. Emily was triumphant until she saw that the woman's back was still, not rising and falling from breathing. She quickly leaned down and touched her fingers to the bloody neck, feeling for a pulse. She found none._

 _Adam chanting encouragement for various atrocities she couldn't stand to think of, even now._ Oh, God, forgive me. _She had never much cared what God thought since the temperance society preached his hatred for "unnatural" women, but she sought his forgiveness now._

 _Lurking in the shadows, seething over Henry's love for all of these women who_ weren't her. _She felt silly for such anger over so petty a thing now, staring death in the face. It was not as easy as she might have thought it would be after all these decades._

 _Henry placing a kiss on her forehead, near the hairline, soft and reassuring._

" _You are a strong, lovely, intelligent young woman, and you will see the end of this. I promise you, you will make it. Never, never be sorry for who you are or who you love. Those are the most important things about you, so there is no need to be ashamed of that. Love is what keeps us alive, and you must hold onto it when you find it. Always," he advised her._

 _She looked into his earnest brown eyes and felt the truth in his words. She held them in her heart until the end of her sorrows._

Oh, she didn't want to die, not yet. The ground loomed all too soon. She couldn't help closing her eyes just before the impact jarred her to her core. {She felt bones crunch and organs burst. Her head cracked against the sidewalk.} Her eyes opened to see Adam vanish, off to the river to be reborn. If she could have moved, she would have turned to see if she had fared as badly, but her paralysis in itself was indication enough. She was tired, so tired. She closed her eyes again.

Jo ran down the stairs as soon as she saw Adam disappear. She exploded from the doorway and dropped down to Adler's side. She felt for a pulse. It was there, but weak and getting weaker.

"Call an ambulance," Jo barked at some gawking bystanders who had wandered up.

About three fumbled their phones from their pockets and dialed. She waved everyone away, yelling that she was from the NYPD and they needed to move back and give this woman some room. {Adler's body started convulsing violently as it tried in vain to repair itself again and again. Jo heard a disturbing crackling noise and a kind of wet choking.} Finally, it stopped. Jo stared hopefully at the pool of blood, waiting for it to shrink as Adler's body reclaimed it, but it stayed still. Jo cursed. She hadn't liked Adler, sure. Maybe even hated her. But it was still upsetting that she had died so horribly. She had been Henry's friend, once. Jo didn't know how she would begin to tell him. The ambulance arrived, and she informed them that she was a police officer and that the woman who died had abducted her, then let her go and fell off the roof struggling with a third party whose whereabouts were unknown. She watched as they loaded the prone form of Adler, encased in a body bag, into the back of the vehicle, feeling something like regret. Glancing at the pool of blood, she thought it looked a bit smaller, but she dismissed it as her imagination. Jo finished her statements to the officers and promised to file a report later, then borrowed a phone from one of the bystanders and made a call to Henry.

Henry was frantic. After he had found the note, he worried himself halfway into a nervous breakdown. He had rejected the clothes left for him out of legitimate concern over where they'd come from as well as principle. He had been pacing in a small spot concealed by foliage where he usually waited for Abe, muttering to himself, wondering what on earth he'd do when Jo demanded an explanation he couldn't give. He had decided to tell her, but now was unable to for fear of her safety. He had felt relieved when she didn't press him for information, instead agreeing to wait. He'd been surprised. She'd promised to get him to let her in, but she gave up easily. That worried him too. What on earth could make Jo, who was born to be a detective, not interrogate him after what she'd witnessed? He had done more satisfying pacing at home after she left, still wearing police sweats. He had gone over the details again in his mind and it hadn't added up until Jo had called him and told him she'd figured it out. He trusted her and cared for her so deeply; what reply could he have given other than a resounding yes when she asked him over? Yet when he had arrived, a car had sped away from the curb and he had gotten a glimpse of Jo's face in the passenger seat and a flash of blonde hair from the driver's side. Obviously, Adler had intercepted the call and moved to hurt Jo before he could get to her. He had run after the car, but lost it shortly. He shoved his hands through his hair in frustration and panic. He had no idea where they were and no way to contact them, since the first thing Adler would do would be to take Jo's phone away. All he could do was wait and waiting was absolute torture.

When the phone at the shop rang, he pounced on it and had to force himself to answer calmly instead of roaring a demand to know if Jo was safe into the mouthpiece. There was always the chance it was one of his son's customers calling.

"Hello?" he asked, voice trembling with rage and fear.

"Henry? Are you okay? You sound like you're being strangled," Jo commented. Jo! She was safe. His breath whooshed out in a gust of relief.

"Thank God you're okay," he breathed. "I was so worried. What happened?"

"Ms. Adler kidnapped me, we had a chat about her origin story and about you, and she let me go," Jo began.

"She let you go? That seems rather out of character," he mused.

"We came to a... mutual understanding, but there's more. Henry, she's- she's dead," Jo sighed.

"What? That's impossible," Henry exclaimed. He was incredulous not only that the semi-immortal was dead, but that Jo sounded almost sad about it.

"Adam showed up and wasn't happy that she was letting me go. He fought with her and they fell off the roof together. He's heaven knows where and she didn't... she didn't heal. She stopped breathing. There was no pulse. They already took her to the morgue. I'm sorry, Henry. I know what she meant to you," Jo explained.

"It isn't your fault, Jo. Not in the slightest. She put herself on the path that ended here. Are _you_ alright?" he asked, very well knowing that the answer was no.

"I will be. Hey, could you come over again? We still need to talk. Maybe more than before," she requested.

"Certainly, Jo. I'll be right there," he promised, then hung up.

Adam. When would that terrible man cease to be a burden to him? He surprised himself by feeling more regret over the loss of who Emily used to be than over her death now, and he felt guilty. All the same, he was glad that Jo was not the one who fell off the roof. Jo. His Jo. She knew his secret, which would complicate their relationship greatly. He only hoped it wouldn't bring it to its conclusion.

...

Hours later, in a cold storage drawer in a back corner of the NYPD morgue, a corpse sat up violently, gasping for breath.

"Ow!" Emily screeched as she banged her head, then covered her mouth, listening to see if she'd been heard. Silence.

She hissed in pain as the Y-shaped incision finished healing across her chest. It left behind a noticeable scar rather than smooth skin. She supposed it made sense since she was rather drained. Literally. Because she'd been moved, she'd been unable to reclaim the blood she'd lost. Carefully, she maneuvered so that she could lever the door open from the inside and step cautiously onto the cold tile that felt warm to feet chilled by the body freezer. She shivered. Making her way carefully into the dark, abandoned offices, she found a smaller lab coat and buttoned it over her naked body. Emily felt a ripple of distaste wash over her at being undressed by strangers while almost entirely dead. At least she wasn't wearing that horrid outfit any longer. The detective's type of a attire had been a costume that hadn't fit her. She poked her head into Henry's office and saw that he'd left behind a blue scarf on his coat rack. He must have been distracted. Or maybe he simply kept a spare here. It would be just like him to have a spare scarf at work in case of any neckwear-related emergencies. What one of those might constitute, she had no idea. Nevertheless, she couldn't resist winding it around her neck as she made her way to the elevator. She breathed in the unique Henry scent of spice and antiseptic as she slipped quietly out the back door and hailed a cab. She had a lot of work ahead of her closing out her old identity and moving somewhere she could be invisible, but it would be worth it. After all, she had finally found a man who was dark enough to truly deserve being on the receiving end of the fulfillment of her revenge fantasies. And she had nothing but time to work out the details.

 _I'm coming for you, Adam._

-End of Chapter 6-

A/N: Wow! That was a rollercoaster of a chapter, wasn't it? I hope y'all enjoyed the peeks into Emily Adler's storied past. This is not the end, though! The epilogue is next and I hope to bring about a satisfying conclusion while leaving room for Ms. Adler to maybe make a reappearance in future fics. Thanks for the reads and reviews, and for sticking with me until the end of the fic. Until next time, my lovelies.


	8. Epilogue: Shameless

Author's Note: Here it is! The epic conclusion. So sorry it took ages. Enjoy!

Epilogue: You Think You Don't Know Someone

Jo opened the door to see Henry's handsome face. She could tell he'd been worried about her and while she felt guilty that he'd been upset over her disappearance, she was warmed by the reminder that he truly cared about her. She stepped aside and gestured for him to enter. She led him to the living room and the sheet-covered research boards. She felt a thousand nervous twinges in her stomach as she faced Henry, preparing to admit her betrayal of his trust.

"What's this about, Jo? What do you want to show me?" he asked quizzically.

"The reason I've been acting so strangely since Adler got here is because I've been researching you, though I didn't know it was you at first," she began, taking a deep breath to steady herself before removing the sheet and unveiling her the fruits of her obsessive labor of the past weeks.

Henry sucked in a breath as he took in the fevered scribbles and the maps and photographs and muddled tangle of red strings and colored pins. She didn't give him time to respond and thundered ahead with her explanations and excuses.

"I was worried about you when she showed up because I'd never seen anyone or anything make you that afraid, so I went to the teahouse to make sure she wasn't there to hurt you but ended up eavesdropping because she mentioned you running from something and I couldn't leave thinking you were in some kind of danger. Adler knew I was there and dropped the hint about the ship on purpose. I started digging because I thought she was playing some kind of game and I didn't want to be out of the loop of what she was up to. Actually, I think that I just wanted to get to know you in this indirect way, through your ancestors. You're pretty cagey about your past so I guess I thought it was the only way I could find anything out about you. But I promise I never poked around in your current personal file or anything. That was a line I wasn't okay with crossing. My research led to me finding a lot more Henry Morgans than the one who died on the _Empress_. I thought they were your ancestors. After awhile, I started to notice a pattern that none of the Henrys stayed in one place very long and most of them went missing. Then you got shot and I found your drawer of passports open in your house. Adler must have left it for me to find," Jo continued. Henry frowned at the idea of Adler roaming around in his apartment while he was away. Jo resumed her narrative.

"She also left me a note about Charing Cross Asylum and Southwark prison and the envelope had two photographs in it. One was of a regiment of soldiers in World War II. You were the medic in the corner. The handwriting on the back belonged to you. The other one was of Abe, much younger taking a picture of you and Abigail looking at each other and smiling. I found out earlier by digging through police archives that Sylvia Blake was actually named Abigail Morgan, but it took those pictures for me to put the pieces together. All of the Henrys were you and you were over two hundred years old and could come back from the dead. I obviously knew something was up when you died and disappeared at the cab company, but I didn't know what it was until I was looking at your face staring from a decade you couldn't have been in. When I realized that I hadn't been digging into your family history, but your personal past, I felt... guilty. I had to confess everything to you, so I called and asked you over. You know the rest," she concluded, biting her lip. "Henry, I'm- I am so sorry I violated your privacy and betrayed your trust like this. I shouldn't have looked into this without your permission, even when I thought it was just about long-dead ancestors. It was wrong of me and I just want to apologize."

Henry was silent, eyes on the boards instead of her. What was he thinking? Was he furious? Jo couldn't read him and she got even more anxious. Was he trying to figure out the best way to tell her that they couldn't be friends anymore?

"Henry, you have every right to be angry with me, but I need you to say something. Please," she pleaded.

Henry fingered the picture of him and Jo with hands touching at the bar the night that Lucas took all of those insufferable pictures. He felt his heart swell at the realization that the fluttering in his chest he'd felt so many times since knowing the detective was more than friendly affection. She knew his secret and instead of running away or demanding answers or being upset with him, she was apologizing. Aware that he had taken too long in responding to her request, he turned away from his study of the board. It was a truly impressive piece of work. Jo must have worked very hard for many hours to dig up all of this information on him, especially considering he'd destroyed most of it. He was floored by how close some of her theories about his past lives had come. He was astounded that she had guessed the truth, although he shouldn't have been. Like Adler had said, Jo was clever and he was reckless with his secret when it came to her. Seeing the desperation in her writing as she struggled to arrive at a conclusion, starving for just one tidbit that would help her understand him, he felt shame for not telling her sooner. He was disappointed in himself for not telling her and leaving her to puzzle it out on her own. It was clear from the way he never hesitated to put his secret in jeopardy when she was in danger that he trusted her with the information. He always had.

He looked on his dearest friend in the world and saw unshed tears in her eyes. He started. He hadn't known how hard it would be for her to admit to this, how much her perceived blame for snooping weighed upon her. _She is truly frightened that I will be angry with her,_ he realized. He softened and moved toward her, wrapping his warm hands around her trembling ones.

"Oh, Jo. My Jo," he sighed, gazing at her. "How could I be angry with you? I forgive you. I should have told you my secret long ago. I trust you with all my heart. It's my fault for being so closed off, for never sharing anything with you, even innocuous things about my past. It must have frustrated you greatly and I am sorry for the distress I have caused you worrying about my safety and wondering about my past. If there is anything you want to know about me, just ask. I think it's past time that I was open and honest with you."

Jo gazed disbelievingly at him. "After everything I've done, you forgive me, just like that? Privacy is everything to you; it's the only way you survive. And I violated it. You're not the one who needs to be sorry," she said vehemently. "I know what they did to you at Bedlam. How your wife betrayed you more than once after you told her the truth. How can you trust anybody after something like that?"

"I trusted Abigail, and I trust Abe. I trust you. All of that still hurts. It still scares me and makes me hesitant to let people in. It's part of why I never said anything to you about this. However, those events were a very long time ago. My last heartbreak was thirty years ago when Abigail disappeared. She would have wanted me to move on. I think that the time for that has come now," he declared softly but firmly.

He cupped her face in his hands and looked her earnestly in the eyes.

"Jo Martinez, I have been running from this for a long time because of my past and my curse, but I'm done running. Beyond all reason and without a shred of doubt, I love you. And I hope to God you feel the same so that I didn't just make a fool of myself," he murmured breathlessly.

"Henry Morgan, you are an incredibly complicated, incredibly guarded, completely impossible man, but despite every reason that I shouldn't, I love you too. You are forgiven, too, always and completely," she said.

Henry had thought that he couldn't get any happier, but he was glad to be proven wrong when Jo grabbed the back of his head and pulled him down to kiss her. It wasn't heated or frantic or any of the things it should have been after so much tense waiting, but it was good. It was slow and deep and achingly sweet. For once, time was the last thing on their minds. When they broke apart, they were both grinning.

"Alright, Henry. Enough fun. I have a lot of questions. I want to hear everything and this time I want to hear it from you," she teased.

"You may regret asking, Jo. After all, it's a long story," he said, using the line that drove her crazy.

"I've got time."

It would be many hours before the two would make it back to Henry's flat to tell Abe the good news, before he would exclaim, "Finally! It's about time." It would be days before they would find out that Adler's body was missing and her records mostly gone. It would be weeks before they would find the letter addressed to both of them in elegant script on the kitchen table, with one photograph enclosed.

 _Dearest Henry and Most tolerable Detective Martinez,_

 _Suprise! I'm alive, and mostly well. I have taken all measures to close out my old identity and move on in every sense of the word. It would seem that New York has grown too small to hold me. You may not believe this, but I wish you both every happiness. The costumes of Martinez and Abigail were ones that fit me ill and I no longer have any desire to do either of you harm. To Henry, I still love you, but I need to take some time to put myself in order and devise a way to kill that insufferable Adam before I will be able to approach you again. This time, I promise to call first. My number is on the back of the letter if you wish to contact me. If it changes, I'll send you the new number. To Ms. Martinez, congratulations on finding a truly wonderful man to love. Cherish him and never let him go. I recommend duct tape (fabulous invention) for preventing him from escaping if necessary. That was a joke, in case that wasn't clear. I'm making progress already in moving forward with my life and I met a very nice man in Jamaica that reminds me fondly of my dearest Magda. His name is Tremaine. Enjoy your lives and be cheered by the knowledge that I am still around to be involved in them. Isn't that wondrous?_

 _Regards,_

 _Emily_

The picture contained a smiling young black man leaning on a thatched roof bar wearing an apron and a smiling Emily Adler, holding his hand and beaming at the camera. Her hair was chopped off into an edgy bob with purple-dyed tips and she was wearing a loose teal dress with a long skirt with an uneven hemline and a sun hat with a long white ribbon tilted at a jaunty angle. Her face was mostly free of makeup and her feet were bare. The inscription on the back read:

 _ **I finally found a me that fits. And I think I'm going to love it.**_

-End Epilogue-

A/N: Wow! What an ending! I hope you liked it, my lovely readers. I am so sorry that I took this long to get it done. College applications are a legalized form of torture. Thank you for reading and I'll see you in my next fic! (metaphorically of course).


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